Final Fantasy VII: Ultimate Absolution
by Akemi Homura-san
Summary: Nibelheim. The Forgotten Capital. Meteorfall. Geostigma. Dissidia. Sephiroth Crescent, the One-Winged Angel, is slowly going mad under the weight of all of his guilt; for him, it seems, not even Death is a reprieve from pain. Then, five years after his death, a mysterious swordsman emerges, asking for the former Silver General of SOLDIER. Prepare for a battle royale. FV, B, G. R&R.
1. Chapter 1: Inception

_There was one SOLDIER named Sephiroth, who was better than the rest. But when he found out about the terrible experiments that made him, he began to hate ShinRa. And then, over time, he began to hate everything. ShinRa, and the people against them. Sephiroth, who hated the planet so much that he wanted to make it go away. And the people who tried to stop him. There were a lot of battles. For every battle, there was more sadness. Someone I loved went back to the Lifestream too. And then it came; the chosen day. In the end, the Planet itself had to make the battle stop for good. The Planet used the Lifestream as a weapon and when it burst out of the earth, all the fighting, all the greed and sadness, everything was washed away. Sadness was the price to see it end. It's been five years since they told me that. _

–_Marlene Wallace_

* * *

When he went for his annual visit to the Forgotten Capital, the absolute _last_ thing Cloud Strife expected to see was what greeted him when he reached the pool where Aeris had met her end. Suspended in midair above the altar was a nearly spectral figure, attired almost identically to his old enemy, the former Silver General–in fact, he might well have confused the figure for Sephiroth if not for the fact that his long, lustrous hair was the almost fluorescent black of a raven's feathers, more so than the lack of pauldrons, the turtleneck he wore and the absurdly broad wings of scarlet light that sprouted from his back and presumably kept him sustained in his levitation. In the figure's left hand was a sword that was like and unlike the dreaded Masamune–it, too, was an _ōdachi_, with a black hilt that was about half a meter long and an elegantly curved silver blade that was another three. Decorating it was a design of a dragon, in painstaking detail, such that it almost appeared to writhe along the obviously lethal length of silvery metal. Glowing scarlet eyes fixed upon his, with pupils the shape of slits and irises that suffered no shadow nor reflected any light or image: they were intent, yes, but somehow conveyed a deeply-held boredom full of contempt.

The figure descended slowly, his knee-high black leather wing-tipped boots alighting gracefully upon the surface of the pool, generating a single, solitary, uninterrupted ripple upon its face, the long tails of his ankle-length black leather coat billowing out with his descent. When he spoke, his voice was a cool, musical bass that reverberated eerily throughout the chamber. "Where is he?"

"I…I'm sorry?" asked Cloud, fighting to break free of his dazed surprise.

In one instant, the figure was in the center of the pool, and in the next, he was right beside Cloud, his blade against the blond's throat. "Where…is…he?" asked the figure, the bored calm of his voice turned deadly. "I shall not ask again…_Cloud._" The way that the mysterious man said his name was so much like the way _he _said it that Strife shivered inadvertently.

"Who?" the blond managed at last.

"Don't play dumb with me, Strife. I have not the patience to bandy words with an unofficial third-class SOLDIER comprised of the power of a first-class and a chocobo-headed _reject,_" spat the unnaturally pale man. After a moment, he rolled his eyes and huffed in profound irritation."The Starcaller, you imbecile!"

Something clicked in Cloud's head. _The Starcaller…_ There was only one who was worthy of that title: the man–_the monster, _thought Strife–who had somehow mastered the Black Materia and called down Meteor upon the Northern Crater, seeking to damage the Planet and use the Lifestream from the local world-wound to achieve godhood. The creature whom he had twice killed:

The legendary Silver General, Sephiroth.

"Sephiroth…" he whispered.

"Yes. Sephiroth Crescent is whom I seek, and you will tell me where he is, _puppet, _or I shall kill you…" The figure's strange eyes, at the same time similar and altogether different from those of the gunslinger, Vincent Valentine, widened almost imperceptibly. "Ah. Dead then, I take it?" he asserted with an edge of disappointment in his voice. He removed the blade of his _ōdachi _stiffly from the two-hander's throat, twirling it through the air before wiping phantom blood from it and sheathing the weapon into a _saya _only long enough for a katana, though it somehow fit. "That's really quite unfortunate… I _seriously _didn't want to have to deal with the red mage…" The man walked past Cloud, the clacking sound of the heels of his boots hitting against the stone floor of the cave echoing throughout the cavernous city as he made for the exit with an unerring sense of direction.

Strife shook off his surprised and hateful daze, pivoting on his heel and racing through the city to try and catch up with the entity who was now leaving–an entity that he was growing increasingly sure was a bad idea to release. "Hey, stop!" he called. "Stop!" Becoming more desperate and frustrated, Cloud brought the Fusion Swords out of their scabbard on his back, gripping it tightly, assuming his best battle-stance and charging the creature with the approximate shape of a man, his war cry ringing throughout the halls.

A flash of silver…

Finding himself suddenly on his backside, propped up and slouching against the wall of one of the houses the ancient Cetra had inhabited, the Fusion Swords now falling to embed themselves into the rock of the cave with a clang and a keening, cleaving sound, Cloud absently dabbed the fingers of his gloved hand against the deep, gaping wound that had suddenly appeared across his chest from his left hip to his right shoulder, noting with a strange sense of disconnection that the bones of his ribcage had suddenly been exposed. He struggled to regain his wits, but what he saw stopped him cold.

The figure stood there, his _ōdachi_ raised in the air in the grip of a single hand at the angle that the alleged ex-SOLDIER would hazard a guess to be the angle that the blade had reached upon exiting the wound, his face (that Cloud suddenly noticed exceeded the human capability of perfection to an unnatural degree) shrouded in shadow, though a pair of what he supposed were eyes, but appeared to be twin pinpoints of scarlet fire, glowing out of his obscured visage, as unobstructed as when his face had been visible. Those eyes seemed to be boring holes into him, glaring contemptuously even as the killing intent in them faded.

"Your arrogance is quite boorish, _boy,_" he admonished mockingly. "She allows you to maintain it and the illusion associated to your detriment, methinks. But it is no matter; bottom line, _otaku-kun_, do not challenge a swordsman with your delusions of grandeur if you value your life." The _kissaki _of the blade was lowered slowly to point towards the ground, and then the blade was twirled through the air, cleaned of the very real blood that now clung to it, and once again sheathed. He turned around once more, his back facing the blond as he walked to the threshold of the exit. There he glanced at Cloud over his shoulder, his eerie scarlet eyes still glowing in the darkness and fully visible as a result. "The name's Olliver, by the way. Olliver Cronqvist. But you can call me…Æbel, let's say. Yes, that should do nicely. Goodbye, Cloud. Don't follow me. Releasing Binding Coil Two."

With that, he turned back towards the open desert lit by moonlight, the scarlet wings of light that at some point had disappeared emerging from his back and unfurling to their full span–Cloud guestimated eleven or twelve meters–crouched, his wings shooting up in the air, and _leapt,_ the strange appendages propelling him upwards with a powerful stroke _down, _and with another such stroke in midair, he flew with speed greater than any bird and a great many airplanes across the sky, and was gone in an instant.

The wound knitted itself closed relatively quickly, and when the blond could move again, he picked up his cell phone and dialed frantically the one person he knew he could turn to in times of crisis, as he feared this one had just become.

_"You've reached the Seventh Heaven. This is Tifa Lockheart speaking," _came the response on the other end of the line.

Cloud exhaled in relief. "Tifa! It's Cloud."

_"…Cloud?"_

"Yes. Listen, Tifa. I'm at the Forgotten Capital. I think I've just made a huge mistake. I think…I think I just released something terrible."

_"…again?"_

He huffed in exasperation. "_Yes, _again."

* * *

A few hours later and several hundred kilometers away, the Vampire King alighted upon the rim of the entrance to a cavern that temporarily housed his target, folding and retracting his wings into his back as he unsheathed his beloved, legendary magical weapon, and allowed a small portion of his power to flow into the blade, lengthening it into its _ōdachi _form. His footsteps were nearly silent as he tread upon the rocky ground, his gait graceful as ever, his bearing at once regal and predatory. His target was at once paranoid and impulsive, meaning that in order to accomplish his objective with a minimum of both time and collateral damage, he would need to be ready should the target become…_unwieldy. _

The blade of his cherished sword shifted a lock of vibrant, fiery red hair from a clearly-sleeping face, the cold touch of the enchanted silver, magnified by its master's dislike for the man he was here to contact, making him shift in his sleep, but not awaken. Rolling his eyes upwards to simultaneously curse and plead with the heavens, the Lord of the Elder Council nudged the sleeping man's side, and when he moaned instead of rose, he delivered a far more savage kick to the same area, sending the red mage sprawling across the ground as he received a rather rude awakening, drawing and readying his rapier as his blue eyes, still blurry with sleep, swept the room, betraying the fact that he was both bewildered and shaken to be so disturbed.

"'Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess,'" quoted the immortal. "'We seek it thus and take to the skies. Ripples form on the water's surface. The wandering soul knows no rest.' How very devout of you. But you know, even Minerva has her limits, especially when it comes to the souls of the ancient Cetra, adrift in the Lifestream. And oh, how the Cetra do bay for your blood…_Genesis Rhapsodos._"

"You…who are you? How do you know me?" asked the man formerly known as the Crimson Commander, confusion now added to the list of the woes from which he was currently suffering, and thus adding to the list of reasons for him to be thoroughly, properly and resoundingly pissed. "How… _How did you find me?!_"

"Of course, being directly responsible for the mental state of the High Summoner's consort, which, in turn, led to her death, the deck's kind of stacked against you from the start in that arena, dear Gen," continued the vampire, as if Genesis had not spoken, which fanned the rapidly growing flames of his famous temper. "As I told the otaku who thinks he's a SOLDIER, my name is Æbel. And I'm here to give you a chance to fix your greatest error–or, at least, to make amends for it."

"'Æbel,' huh?" said Genesis, even as he readied his materia. "Well then, Æbel, no offense, but I'm getting pretty _sick of your voice!_" At this, he lobbed an overpowered Firaga at the black-clad man, but the spell was sliced in half with a keening, pseudo-metallic wail, the cloven parts of it exploding on either side of the man as he stood there, composed as a statue, his arm holding his sword in the air at the completion of its arc.

"Believe me, Rhapsodos, the feeling is mutual," said he, lowering his sword once more, but keeping it ready. "Unfortunately, a certain chocobo-haired SOLDIER _reject _went and killed the one with whom I am supposed to converse, and would quite frankly much rather be conversing with presently. Thus, I need you. Specifically, I need you to cooperate with me. Do so, and perhaps the Cetra will revise their opinion of you. But Genesis, a hero was never made of one who wished the title. Get that through your thick skull right _bloody _now, and we'll get on just fine together."

"Why me?" Genesis asked glibly. "Too weak to do what you need to do on your own?"

"Hardly," he responded. "Why, you ask? Well, you're a very powerful red mage in your own right–of a talent that hasn't been seen in _centuries_–enough so that it would be foolish of me to leave you unleashed. Your delusions of grandeur might well reduce the most brilliant of my plans to smoking rubble, which would really be quite irritating. First. Second, you're an excellent diversionary tactician, and while I could do what I need to do directly, my client has asked for it to be relatively bloodless, and for that I need you…leashed, of course. Third, and most importantly, you had a connection to Sephiroth. A connection you abused, and to devastating effect. So it follows that in an attempt to resurrect him, you might prove instrumental."

"Is that it?" Genesis asked incredulously, throwing his arms out wide. "If you need someone who hurt him, why don't you use what's-his-name? Cloud Strife? He _killed _Sephiroth!"

"Is that what they told you?" he returned, his voice grown soft and pitying, though his luminescent scarlet gaze remained inscrutable. "Genesis, Cloud wasn't capable of killing Sephiroth. Sephiroth committed _suicide._"

The wind rushed out of Genesis's sails, and he crumpled, speechless.

"I…I'll do it."

* * *

Chaos stirred.

_What is it?_ Vincent sent to the WEAPON.

_{Something powerful just entered my perception,} _grumbled Chaos. _{_Very _powerful. As in, powerful enough to have destroyed Jenova without killing your son.}_

This disturbed the gunslinger. What disturbed him further were the images that accompanied the sentiment: blood, screams, gunfire, immolation, and the terrible power of a Great Red Dragon. He stirred from his place on a cliff not far from Lucrecia's Cave, stepping forth to the edge of the ledge and staring up at the sky.

_{Not another Calamity, Vincent,} _sent Chaos in exasperation. _{This one takes the form of Man. I can sense him, but…I don't want to. He's scary…} _Vincent frowned. _{By way of illustration, Omega wouldn't be able to harm a hair on this guy's head.}_

_ Is there no way to defeat him? _asked Vincent.

_{The only one with enough power to do that, Vin, is dead,} _the demon answered.

The former Turk's eyes flickered downwards.

_{You know the one.}_

Indeed he did.

His cellphone rang, and quick as a bullet, he flipped it up to his ear and answered it. "Cloud," he greeted coolly.

_"Vincent, I'm sorry to ask this of you, but we've got a problem. Big time," _said the blond without preamble. _"There was something…something imprisoned in the Forgotten Capital. And I think I just let it loose."_

"On my way," he replied simply, snapping the phone shut and secreting it away on his person; then, spreading his arms out wide, he fell, the snapping of bones and the tearing of flesh signifying his shift into the form of Chaos in mid-air. When the transformation was complete, the demon spread its wings and caught onto a gale of rushing wind, using it to buoy himself upwards and making for Edge City.

_And so it begins._


	2. Chapter 2: Preparation

Genesis Rhapsodos could almost say he was growing to like his travelling companion despite himself. As they travelled–by day, on foot, and on wing by night–the strange, pale _bish__ō__nen _spoke to him on any number of topics, most of which revolved around updating his second- and third-hand knowledge of the fate of his former friend, with a special focus on Sephiroth's psychology; the hidden part of him that the Crimson Commander had damaged almost irreparably. In the beginning, he resisted the pale man's explanations for why his old friend acted the way he acted, but the more he thought about it, the more simply fell into place, and the more he comprehended just how big an error he had made in allowing himself to be a pawn in Hollander's petty rivalry with Hojo.

Currently, though the moon hung large and full in the night sky, they did not dare take wing for the massive gusts and currents of wind that made their normal, time-effective method of travel a risky prospect at best, and downright foolhardy at worst. The thermals produced a keening wail as they howled through the empty rocks and fjords of Cosmo Canyon, but this only served to muffle the sounds of their travel, which would have otherwise echoed throughout the landscape and alerted the tribe of the creature known as Nanaki to their presence, and in no way inhibited their ability to make conversation, even as they focused on where to place their hands and feet while they scaled up the rock faces and traversed the tumultuous terrain.

"Where are we going?" asked the red mage.

"Nibelheim," he answered from ahead of him. "Best place to try and find a way to haul Zack out of the Lifestream. He'll be useful in keeping Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE out of our hair. And no fireballs."

Genesis mock-pouted. "You're no fun…" he lamented half-seriously.

"Hmph," he smirked. "You'll have plenty of time to cause mayhem later, when I'll need you to cause a distraction. Now, however, the objective is subtlety. And there are few things less subtle than…Firaga Dodgeball, is it?"

"Close enough," confirmed the Crimson Commander, continuing to make his way up the rock face.

"And trust me," said the Vampire King, turning back and allowing Genesis to gaze upon the maniacally bloodthirsty, feral expression that had just appeared on his face. "By the time this is over, you're going to see some _real _fireworks!"

"Well, well, well, maybe it might be worth sticking around after all!" interjected an elfin, feminine, nigh-on childlike voice from the top of the cliff.

"Good evening to you as well, Shantotto," spoke the black-haired man, hoisting himself up next to the heretofore unseen figure with a single hand. Genesis soon followed, though he found himself at a loss when confronted with the blonde, diminutive figure before them.

"Hello, my friend. Your request is finished, so I thought upon you I might call." With this, the pigtailed woman plucked out of thin air the seemingly-unfinished framework of a staff several times larger than her, with a sizeable gap at its head.

"My thanks, Professor," said the vampire, taking the proffered item delicately. "It seems you always come through with quality work when I need you to."

"Ohohohohoho! High praise indeed, for a king of immortals. But little time I have; infinite is not the life of portals. Farewell, dear friend, and good travels!" The woman clad in black and gold waved up at the much taller man, bowed her head with her hands clasped, subsumed herself in a ball of nebulous purple energy, and was gone.

The swordsman scrutinized the staff in his grasp, turning it over and around and noting that selfsame sphere-shaped gap. "It's missing its main component," he noted. "But then again, that was more than expected. Besides, I do not doubt that taking that foul relic from this plane should not be an action that anyone objects to. Of course, that would mean its twin would leave as well, but that can only benefit me." He looked to Genesis, as if having forgotten his presence, then back to the staff, making it disappear before turning towards the red mage once more. "Come. Let us begone before another of my…_old friends_ arrive. The next one I would hate to have to greet here. Less precarious ground would be optimal." With that, he leapt into the air, landing about half of a kilometer away, on level, if mostly barren, ground. Not to be outdone or left behind, so too did Genesis follow suit.

"AAARGH!" came a fierce battle cry from above. Genesis looked up to see a man, tall and slender, falling through the air, a massive lance in his grasp, ready to impale the sable-clad swordsman; but however quickly the planet's gravity was carrying him towards his target, the weapon the red mage had come to know to be called 'Kangetsu' was faster still. In an instant, the full silver length of the blade was freed of its _saya_ and held aloft, such that when the lance made contact with the raised _ōdachi_, with a flick of its wielder's wrist and a down-stroke of his sword-arm, the assailant was launched out of his arc to land on the ground in a roll.

"Kain. Right on schedule," said he. "I was beginning to wonder if I could rely upon you."

"Quiet, Dragon," said the lance-wielding warrior. "You promised me!"

"_Now?!_" asked the other incredulously. He gave an exasperated huff and rolled his glowing scarlet eyes. "Well then, if you must. I _did _promise you that."

"Excellent. _ENGARDE!_" cried the man, Kain, wheeling his lance through the air and snapping it into position, tip down, shaft running up the back of his arm, his main foot back and his off-hand held out towards the vampire. The purple dragon's-head helm he wore did not seem to interfere with his vision, nor did the similarly-designed plates and mail of the rest of his armor seem to impede upon his speed and dexterity. It was for this reason predominantly that Genesis elected to stay out of this; he wished to see how his companion would react, and was loathe to get in his way, as he grudgingly knew he surely would otherwise.

The swordsman, too, dropped into a stance, languidly and with a fluidity of motion that seemed to somehow exude both restraint and killing intent. In his sword hand rested Kangetsu, and he brought it up and back into a_ Hirazuki _stance, prepared for a thrust of his own; at first grasping with both black leather-gloved hands, he seemed to trace the arc of his blade with his right, his eyes closed. When they snapped open, Genesis shivered despite himself at the sadistic revelry and bloodthirsty malice those eyes that burned like scarlet fire contained.

Without the slightest cue besides the other, long, tense moments passed before, as one, they moved toward each other: Kain charging across the ground with another fierce battle cry, Æbel silent as the grave. A flash of light signified their clashing, as well as a nigh-deafening sonic boom, and at the end, when both ended up on the opposite side of the unofficial arena, only Kain staggered, at the shock of the wound and the wound itself both, clutching at his chest, where suddenly a long, narrow gash ran from his right shoulder to his left hip, droplets of blood welling up almost instantaneously thereafter. And there stood Æbel, Kangetsu held in his left hand, extended still from his body, while the silver blade itself held no blood, so swiftly was the wound inflicted.

"As you will notice, Kain, I held back significantly on my _Yamitsuki,_" spoke the victor, finally straightening out of his hyper-extended lunge and resting the blunt edge of his weapon upon his shoulder. "Had I not… Well, I'm sure you get the idea. I have need of your aid, old friend, and one cannot render aid from beyond the grave–most of the time, anyways."

The dragoon laughed, wincing as the motion of his chest set the narrow wound ablaze. "Sure, I'll help out. After all, you _did _save my life when my hunt for Bahamut went wrong. Given that, I think rendering aid is the least I can do. Red mage, a little help here?" Genesis started, before regaining his wits somewhat and utilizing a Cure materia to heal the wound. With a muttered expression of gratitude, Kain rammed the butt of his lance into the ground, using it to help himself stand.

"Excellent," remarked Æbel, pivoting on his heel to face the pair. "Then I believe that introductions are in order. Kain, this is Genesis Rhapsodos. Genesis, this is Kain Highwind, one of my oldest friends." A nod to each other was all the acknowledgement they needed. "Now, if you don't mind, we need to be moving."

"As you say," affirmed Kain, plucking his lance from the ground as the rend in his armor mended itself.

"Time to be on the road again," sighed Genesis, placing his hand upon the hilt of his rapier as the newly-formed trio embarked upon the remainder of their journey.

* * *

_{The Presence's power is only growing,} _sent Chaos. _{Its list of allies–_powerful_ allies–has lengthened. At this rate, very soon, _nothing_ we do will be enough to stop it.}_

_Cloud will, _returned Vincent.

_{Cloud? HA! That weakling only won against your son because…}_

_Yes, I know. But you said yourself that _he _had enough power to accomplish it, meaning that the power this presence wields is inferior in magnitude._

_{Or on even footing, which is the case here,} _chastised Chaos impatiently. _{I don't think you fully understand precisely how potent the thing we're dealing with is.}_

_[Oh, really?] _came an unfamiliar voice. _[And just how potent, pray tell, am I, Chaos?]_

_Who are you? _asked Vincent with some degree of alarm, augmented by the pure terror he felt radiating off of the ball of power in his mind that was the demon.

_[Turn around, and find out for yourself,] _challenged the voice.

He turned on his heel, only to come face-to-face with the creature that he could only suppose was the presence Chaos had felt. Surprisingly pleasant in form, the creature was tall and slender, extremely pale and attired from head to toe in black, though its long, jaggedly-cut hair was of a deeper shade of sable, even, than the leather garments or the sole non-leather clothing item it wore–a turtleneck sweater, strangely enough, and even this was only worn under a long black coat. Bespectacled gold eyes met his red ones, and he wondered what had happened to make the creature's pupils contract to such a degree, let alone with such permanence.

"Well, well, well, you most certainly do not disappoint," remarked the creature, looking him up and down with an appraising, calculating gaze. "Yes, I do believe you'll do."

"For what?"

"Why, to send a message to AVALANCHE! What else?" The creature's voice was musical despite its low register, even as it conveyed its amusement and anticipation at the sentiment it expressed. "How better to notify their leader of how bad for the group's collective health facing me will be than to make an example out of their most capable combatant–namely you, _Vincent Valentine._" The serpentine, malicious relish with which he spoke the gunslinger's name made the temperature within the mansion seem to plummet. For whatever reason, however, his next action was to look out the window at the sun setting on the horizon.

"Why…"

"It begins," whispered the creature, its tone reverent as it removed its half-rim glasses, placing them on a nearby table. "Releasing Binding Coil One."

The sun finally disappeared behind Mount Nibel, and the creature fell to the floor with a silent cry of pain. Fingers dug furrows into the hardwood as what little color had been present in the creature's skin pigmentation vacated, its open mouth revealing a set of very human teeth of inhumanly perfect quality sharpen into points, as the upper and lower pairs of canines lengthened dramatically into upper and lower pairs of fangs, the former long and thin, the latter shorter and wider, after which the creature locked its teeth shut. Its eyes closed tightly, and when they opened, the pupils had become slits, the gold color slowly giving way to luminescent scarlet, the appearance of which was nigh-on identical to that of one pouring a pack of blood into a pitcher of water. When the transformation finished, the creature stood back up on two feet, narrowing its eyes and lolling out its tongue, which had increased in size and turned forked, making it a strange hybrid of a reptilian and mammalian tongue. When Vincent started at this, the creature threw back its head and laughed, and the sound dripped with menace.

"Come then, _Vincent Valentine,_" it bade, a self-satisfied, arrogant smirk forming on its face. "Transform your body! Let the Lord of Chaos reign!"

Despite its fear of the creature, the demon's hackles rose at the subtle taunt implied in its instruction, and this time, Vincent did not even attempt to constrain the WEAPON's emergence, knowing as he did that in order to have even the slightest hope of surviving the encounter, the full power Chaos wielded would need to be brought to bear. And brought to bear it was, for with the snapping of bones and the ripping of flesh, there stood Chaos in all its glory, wings unfurled, its enormous gun readied.

The creature's smirk transformed into a full, feral, manic, savage, bloodthirsty, malicious grin at the sight; in response, it allowed its left leg to draw back slowly, drawing a katana from its unnoticed sheath at its waist. As the arm with which the weapon had been drawn completed its full arc, however, the dragon engraving it bore seemed to come alive, wriggling and writhing as the length of the blade increased from one to three meters, but that of the hilt remained static. When the sword had reached its full size, the creature had it drawn back into a_ Hirazuki_ stance, ready to strike. "Then let us dance the Dance of Death, Lord of Chaos!"

* * *

"Where I come from, the machinery is not so advanced…" explained Kain to Genesis, trailing off as a sudden, loud crashing sound reverberated throughout the town of Nibelheim, originating from Shinra Mansion, followed by a strange, demonic being sailing through the roof and impacting in the middle of the inn's dining hall, smashing a wooden table belonging to a group of fairly burly, vagabond-like men several meters down, reducing it to splinters.

"_COME ON, CHAOS! IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?!_" taunted a voice that was familiar to both men, but a tone only familiar to one. The demon's hackles almost visibly rose, and an instant later, it leapt through the roof again, tearing a new breach into it and sending tables and table settings flying by the aerial shockwave of its wings beating.

"Well, _he _certainly sounds like he's enjoying himself…" commented Genesis.

"He tends to," replied Kain wryly. "Though I cannot fault him for loving his job."

"Me neither, I suppose," admitted the red mage, staring into his coffee. Then, he looked up at his other companion on the opposite side of the booth. "So I understand that where you're from, you hunt dragons?"

* * *

Kangetsu sang through the air as the Vampire King and the demon known as Chaos did battle in the skies. The WEAPON found itself forced to rely upon its claws and its solid, but by no means exceptional, approach to hand-to-hand combat, its rage stoked by the knowledge that their foe was clearly toying with them, tempered though it was that even if its adversary were to commit only so much as a fraction of his power and skill in any serious capacity to the fight, the gestalt being's obliteration would be all but assured.

The swordsman who was their enemy seemed to be deriving a large amount of amusement from utilizing the demon's capacity to regenerate from wounds that were at first minor, but from then on progressed in severity and depth. _We cannot keep this up, _commented Vincent. _Win or lose, we cannot long survive so many injuries._

_{You think I don't know that?!} _Chaos retorted. _{Do us both a favor: just shut up and let me do my job!} _Caught up in the internal dialogue, the demon narrowly avoided having the membrane of its wing torn asunder by a well-placed puncture. Rededicating itself to the fight, the WEAPON still could not seem to make any headway towards their enemy's defeat; only to slow its own, and even then only under extreme duress was this possible. The fiend, however, seemed tireless–_indefatigable_–and so the war of attrition in which they were now engaged seemed to have an all-too-clear victor on the horizon.

And so Chaos saw fit to change things up a bit.

In hindsight, the move was reckless almost beyond comprehension, but in the proverbial 'heat of the moment,' the demon's evaluation was that it would be sufficient for its purposes. It charged the enemy, weathering the almost playful flurry of blows that inflicted dozens of new wounds in the WEAPON's hide, and with a strength and speed born of desperation, it raked its claws into its opponent's shoulder, ripping the right arm clear off of the swordsman's body; the enemy cried out, but strangely enough, not in anger or pain, but in _exultation._

The battle thereafter experienced a short lull, where both combatants floated gracefully to the ground. "**You are wounded, fiend. Yield,**" instructed Chaos, its voice raspy with exhaustion but buoyant with satisfaction.

The sable-clad swordsman smirked. "What, this?" it asked, gesturing at the bloody stump where there had once been a limb. "My dear Chaos, 'tis only a flesh wound."

"**A…flesh wound?**" parroted the demon, its incredulity amplified by its exhaustion. "**Your arm's off!**"

At that moment, the bloody stump began to ooze forth a black substance, interspersed with accents of crimson. The substance covered the rend, then extended forth from it as an amorphous mass, at first straight on its angular course, and then bending, travelling further, then bending again, widening, and splitting off to form five digits, before being absorbed into the black leather that beneath it was concealed. "No, it isn't," the fiend objected, its smirk widening into a menacing grin once again, a short, anticipatory grunt shooting from between its clenched, obviously razor-sharp teeth. The demon groaned inwardly; apparently, its foe possessed significant regenerative abilities, and so did its endeavor appear all the more hopeless. The enemy wasted no time in reassuming its _Hirazuki _battle stance, new right arm and all. "Now come, and rejoin the dance! You are beginning to bore me."

Chaos sprung into the air with a powerful downbeat of its wings, and its opponent responded by shifting the point of its _ōdachi _upwards, spreading its right arm along the arc of the blade once more, and leaping into the air after the demon with such force that a crater of rather significant size was left behind.

The battle began anew.

* * *

"So, how fared your duel with the legendary Chaos?" asked Kain conversationally.

"It fought bravely, and I would be lying if I said that I did not see why he is so feared. He _did _manage to survive two of my _Yamitsuki_ attacks, after all," replied Æbel, Kangetsu resting in its sheath, once more in its katana form. "But ultimately, he was as I expected."

"I am…sorry to hear that," said Kain. "Was he at least better than Gabranth?"

"Leagues," he responded. "But then again, that's not saying much. Gabranth was worse than as expected–he was a disappointment."

"What is that move you do?" asked Genesis. "I've never seen even _Angeal_ perform that kind of technique."

"As I said: a _Yamitsuki__. Kagemusha-ry__ū__: Yamitsuki. _A powerful stab move requiring incredible speed and strength–not to mention discipline–to reliably and correctly execute," the vampire answered. "And no, I could not teach you. Partially because your weapon of choice is unsuitable for the technique."

"Damn," muttered the red mage good-naturedly. A hearty chuckle was shared all around.

"Having said that, if we get the time, I would only be too happy to see what I can do to help you wield that rapier of yours more effectively," he offered. "But the secrets of…my style of swordplay are not those that can be passed on lightly. Ah, here we are. The Nibelheim Mako Reactor. At last."

Genesis looked up at the forbidding silhouette of the complex, shivering despite himself. This was the site where his greatest failure had metastasized, adding not only another of his friend's lives to the account of his sins, but the lives of countless innocents who had perished when Meteor came down–indirectly, yes, but was not also Angeal's death his fault only indirectly? It did not lessen his guilt by one iota, this technicality. So absorbed in dwelling on the past was he that it was a genuine surprise to him when they reached the antechamber to the main reactor–the place where Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class and protégé of Angeal Hewley himself, had fought his final battle before he breathed his last–and stopped abruptly. Both he and his newfound friend watched closely as their enigmatic leader knelt down, unclipping a crystalline flask filled with a sample of the demon's sickly, Mako-green blood from his belt, unstopping it and pouring it upon the ground. He removed his gloves, revealing elegant, fine hands covered with skin the opaque pigment of bleached marble and capped with long, tapered fingers, each digit adorned with a long, sharp nail, at once both like and unlike a claw. These hands he placed on either side of the neat pool of demonic blood he had formed on the rock of the floor, seemingly muttering to himself as he did so, and bowing his head, eyes closed; the muttering continued, and furtive, disembodied whispers wove through the utterance, creating an orderly skein of sound altogether eldritch in the aura it exuded. As the moments ticked on, ethereal tendrils of…darkness–there was really no better way to describe it–snaked around his arms and into the ground as if the rock did not exist, becoming more and more substantial the longer the Vampire King channeled whatever energy he was using.

After what seemed like hours of this, but could really only have been a few minutes, Æbel's eyes snapped open, his head rising as he finished, punctuating his ritualistic chant with, "I swear to the Crystals, Zack Fair, you had best wake up _right now, _or else…"

"I'm coming! I'm coming! Sheesh…" replied an all-too-familiar voice. "Gimme a minute. It's not every day you have to rise from the dead, you know…"

"You have forty-five seconds," replied Æbel, smirking mirthfully in spite of the stern tone with which he spoke to the long-dead Puppy-SOLDIER of ShinRa as he stood from his kneeling position.

"…a little help?" came Zack's voice, his tone sheepish, a little while later.

"Hmph," chuckled the vampire. "Of course." The group ascended the stairs and entered the main reactor core, travelling on a catwalk suspended above a sea of Mako. The swordsman, stepping to the railing at the edge of the path, unsheathed Kangetsu in katana form, drew its blade sharply over his exposed palm and extending that hand over the pool, allowing a stream of blood that looked to be black in color and exuded tendrils of smoke as it descended to flow into the exposed section of the Lifestream.

The planet's lifeblood bubbled as the alien liquid flowed into it, but the fluid continued down, outlining the shape of a body within the Lifestream, and moments later, the surface of it erupted as from the Mako sprang the body of SOLDIER First Class Zack Fair, in full uniform, a single, ivory-feathered wing extending from his back.

"Jeez…I don't think that's something I could get used to–no offense," he grumbled.

"None taken," responded Æbel. "I'd be surprised–not to mention minorly concerned–if it were otherwise."

"Aaaanyways," said Zack, drawing out the first vowel. "What's the sitch?"

"Z…Zack!" Genesis exclaimed in surprise, staggering back a bit before he could recover.

"Genesis," he returned with a curt nod. "You're looking well."

"Could say the same about you." Not unaware of the thin ice upon which he was treading, Genesis Rhapsodos, for once in his life, refrained from commenting further.

"Well, with you here, we are one step closer to solving Aeris's problem," said the swordsman, a wry smirk on his face.

"And I expect Cloud'll be an obstacle?" surmised Zack.

"One can always expect Cloud to be Cloud," he responded.

"You can say that again," snorted the SOLDIER.

"You'll need a weapon," observed the vampire. "Cloud left the Buster Sword in Aeris's church, but when I brought you back just now, it was returned to the cliff where you died, so if you could be so kind as to retrieve it quickly, we can be off."

"Right."

An hour later, the trio-turned-quartet stepped onto the road and left Nibelheim behind.

* * *

"Jeez…what happened here?" asked Tifa, stunned into gaping-mouthed paralysis by the extent of the damage that had been done to the rebuilt town of Nibelheim.

"No kidding. It's like a monsoon tore through this place," commented Yuffie.

"Not a monsoon, but close," replied a well-built young man who was standing close to them amidst the throng of people that had gathered together in the village square to marvel at the wreckage. "It was two guys fighting."

"Wait, so you mean to tell us that one fight…" said Barret, incredulity dripping from his thunderous voice, "…did all of _this?_"

"Aye," responded the man with grave, severe sincerity.

"…How?" asked Cloud, just as shocked.

"A few days ago, three men, strangers all, walked into town," began the villager. "One was dressed up in this weird sort of purple body armor that made him look sort of like a dragon, carrying a lance. _Big _fucking lance this guy had…the biggest you've ever seen, I'd wager. With him was another fellow–good lookin', with hair that was redder than red and dressed in an outfit of red-and-black leather, carryin' some sort of…whaddya call it…_rapier. _Looked a bit like a woman, truth be told. One o' them 'pretty boys.'"

"And _they_ did all this?"

"Nah. They just sat in the inn and chatted over a cup of coffee in the corner, right as rain. It was the _third _guy what did this," explained the man. "Him and some other guy–right fucked up, 'e was; looked like some sort of demon…"

"And the third man. What did _he _look like?" asked the blond, getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Oh, he was the prettiest of the lot, certainly, but there was no confusin' _that _one for a woman. Tall, skinny, long black hair, skin pale as you've ever seen on a human, an' the strangest golden eyes you've ever seen. 'S like he was always looking into a bright light, even in the shade…unchangin'…" The storyteller shivered. "Right dangerous, 'e was; you could tell that from being in the same _room _with the guy. Dressed from head to toe in black leather ('cept for that sweater of his)–boots, coat, gloves, pants, belt, the whole nine. Wore glasses, too, but 'e 'ad this…_sword _on his belt. Black hilt, golden guard that looked like a dragon eating its own tail, curved blade…looked _Wutain, _truth be told."

"What happened? Tell us everything," ordered Cloud, his tone urgent.

"Not here," said the man, suddenly furtive. "Inside."

* * *

"It started at 'round sundown," said the man–Rourke. "Few folks say they heard this big commotion down by the ol' Shinra Mansion. The rest of us, though, can only say tha' we saw this demon-lookin' guy–I'm tellin' you, wings, horns, _everything_–came flyin' through the roof o' that place, arcin' through the air and smashin' right through the roof o' the inn, landin' hard right square in the middle o' the mess. Then this guy starts shoutin'–sounded right mad, 'e did–some kinda taunt… The bloke'd gotten even paler (don' ask me how), got rid of the glasses, an' was wieldin' this _big _fuckin' sword… I swear, the _blade _o' that thing had to be 'bout three meters long! And his eyes…" Rourke shivered at the recollection. "The demon-bloke got right pissed about that, leapin' out o' the inn like it was _nothin'_. After that, they started fightin' again, an' when we woke up in the mornin', the town was in the sorry state you saw when you came."

"What did the man with the sword say? Do you remember?" asked Cloud.

"Nah, I…wait a minute, mayhap I do. Let's see… It was somethin' like 'Come on, Chaos, is that all you've got,' real fightin' words," answered Rourke.

"Chaos?!" exclaimed Yuffie. "Then Vince must've…"

"So _tha's _'is name," remarked Rourke. "We were wonderin' 'bout that. That, and how the poor sod's still alive…"

"Can you take us to him?" interjected Tifa.

* * *

"Vincent?" called the blond. "It's Cloud. By the Crystals, what happened to you?"

"The presence," the gunslinger was just able to force out from his hospital bed in the town clinic, where he lay prone, his eyes closed. "It…challenged me…to a duel… Said it–no, _he_–wanted to…make an example of me. Show you all…what would happen…if you tried…to stop him."

"The villagers got you pegged for a demon. You go Chaos Form or what?" asked Barret point-blank.

"Had to…" was Vincent's reply. "No…other way. Even then I…still lost…"

"…how?" asked Tifa. "In Chaos Form, you're more powerful than _any _of us!"

"Chaos said…that his power…was on par…with Sephiroth's," answered the ex-Turk, opening his eyes as she cast a Cure spell on him, aiding his body in the extremely painful task of knitting itself back together. Muttering a quick 'thank you,' he continued. "Extraordinarily fast… Certainly a lot faster than you'd think, for a sword the size of…the one he was carrying. Barret, help me up." Vincent threw his legs over the edge of the bed, standing gingerly and leaning on the large, burly, dark-skinned man for support. "Hold on…" He reached up with his human hand and wrenched his slightly haphazard jaw back into place with a sharp, sickening snap. "Though why he thought stomping my face into a curb was necessary, I'll never know."

"I don't…" Cloud started, confused; as soon as he realized that Vincent was making a joke, though, it was too late.

"He was clearly holding back…almost _toying _with me. Though from what he said, I get the feeling that he doesn't get to do this very often, and that his intention wasn't to kill me," he continued. "Even so, some of my more grievous injuries still have a few days yet before they heal fully, and Chaos's pride is wounded irreparably, I think." The normally taciturn man hissed involuntarily in pain, making Cloud's spirits drop a little lower, even, than they had plummeted at seeing Vincent in his current state. "Chaos said that only my son had the power necessary to defeat him, but I wonder…"

Yuffie's brow furrowed in confusion. "Wait," she said. "You have a _son?_"

For the first time in over thirty-five years, Vincent Valentine swore.

* * *

"So, what's the plan?" asked Zack. The other three just looked on, amused, at the image of the SOLDIER asking the question whilst compulsively doing squats.

"Some things never change…" muttered Genesis wryly.

This earned a chuckle from their leader, sitting on the windowsill and looking out at the tundra's landscape from their room at the Icicle Inn as he toyed absently with a small crystal. "Nor should they," he replied. "To answer your question, however, currently we are making our way to the Northern Crater. Our objective, currently, is to retrieve the Black Materia. As I have said, it is far too powerful to be left on this plane unattended, for even if one should only study it, since only one has ever mastered it, the Black Materia will dominate the minds of any who should come into contact with it, filling their minds with destructive intent. Regardless, it will be needed to achieve our goal."

This earned a furrowed brow of confusion from Zack, causing him to cease in the middle of his exercise. "But isn't the Black Materia…I dunno…_evil?_" he asked.

"Not even remotely," replied Æbel. "'Evil,' by its nature, requires an intelligent malice. The Black Materia is merely destructive in purpose, and due to its immense power, that nature can be overpowering. But evil it is not. If it were possible for an equally powerful fire materia to exist, it would turn whoever used it into a pyromaniac unless their will was strong enough to resist its influence. That does not mean, however, that all fire materia are evil, does it?"

Zack shrugged. "S'pose not." Then he went right back to his squats.

Genesis frowned. "Does that mean…?"

"To some degree, yes," replied the vampire. "But unless you want to be here for the next decade and a half while I explain to you the nuances of magical theory as it pertains to materia, elaboration on that point is impossible."

"Hey, Kain," called Zack, picking up the Buster Sword and resting it on his shoulder. "You wanna go outside and spar?"

The dragoon, standing in the corner with his arms crossed and his head down, smiled almost imperceptibly. "I should like that. Thank you." With that, he grabbed his lance, the Gáe Bolg, and followed the eager SOLDIER out of the suite the quartet shared.

After some consideration, Genesis picked up his rapier and looked towards Æbel pointedly. The vampire looked out over the landscape and pondered for several more moments before he noticed the red mage's unspoken request.

"Oh, I suppose it couldn't hurt…"

* * *

"Remind me to thank Shantotto, Kain, when next I run into her," said Æbel. "She has truly outdone herself this time."

"I shall," replied the dragoon. "Come to think of it, was she not also responsible for restoring the Gáe Bolg?"

"That she was."

"You know, for a professor of magic, she is quite the artisan–perhaps, even, without parallel," observed Kain.

"I concur," remarked the vampire as he admired the staff in his hands. "And now, in large part due to her efforts, Clarent is at last complete."

Genesis gazed upon the finished weapon–the item the diminutive Tarutaru woman had called a 'Stardust Rod,' only now with the Black Materia inserted into the gap at the staff's head, where it fit perfectly. The artifact of destruction, the mindless desires of which had been slowly filling his mind with their whispers, was now secure, its influence now ineffectual thanks to its newfound host. Somehow, the slotting of the Black Materia seemed to lift the pall of menace that seemed to hang over the chambers Sephiroth had erected within the Northern Crater before enacting his plan to destroy Jenova, once and for all (and debatably succeeding in the endeavor). It had been no easy task to get there, but for three beings with the power of flight and a fourth whose ability to leap was nearly ludicrous, it was several orders of magnitude easier than it had been for AVALANCHE five years prior. The same principle would apply now that it was time to leave, since the blizzards that chronically plagued the region had abated, and haste was paramount so that they would not end up marooned on an island amidst a sea of white. To this end, much as he had before, the Vampire King made the staff, Clarent, disappear into thin air, and with a conversational utterance of "Shall we?" unfurled his wings of light, an instant later shooting up into the night sky with a powerful downbeat of those immense wings, followed in short order by the SOLDIER and the red mage, then finally by the dragoon's leaping arc. On the move once more, they headed towards Midgar.


	3. Chapter 3: Reunion

"And just what are you four hoping to accomplish?" came a voice that was horrifically familiar to half the party as they made their way through the snow-laden forest. "Why do you insist upon making a mess of the natural order of things and generally causing mayhem?"

"A…_Angeal…_" said Genesis, his voice full of wonder and guilt. "How…"

"I noticed a disturbance in the Lifestream and felt the need to investigate. And so, with Minerva's help, I reconstituted my physical form out of Mako from a nearby reactor," replied Angeal Hewley, leaning against the side of the barn, brow furrowed in stern disapproval. "I ask again: just _what _do you hope to accompl…?"

Angeal went flying through the barn, coming out the other side and skidding to a stop in the snow. He looked up in surprise, only to have the image of a _very _pissed-off Zack Fair glaring at him, his eyes showing his emotional state as being several orders of magnitude greater than mere anger. His protégé's eyes never leaving his own, Zack brought up the fist with which he had punched Hewley through a barn and cracked his knuckles, one by one.

"_That _one's for making me kill you," explained Zack, his voice cold and disconnected, so great was his fury. "How dare you. How. _DARE. _You." The young SOLDIER turned on his heel and stormed into the woods. "I've gotta go blow off some steam," he said by way of explanation, unclipping the Buster Sword from his back as he went.

Slightly dazed, Angeal remained nevertheless aware enough to accept Æbel's aid onto his feet, his eyes locked in the direction in which his apprentice had gone. He began to take a step forward, only to be met with a restraint–friendly, but firmer than iron. "He needs to go vent. Give him some space," instructed the vampire, golden eyes meeting black ones in a transmission of understanding.

"He…really took that hard, didn't he…" Angeal mused distractedly. "Don't know why I didn't expect that…"

The Vampire King stared into Angeal's eyes for several moments, searching for something. When he relented, having presumably found whatever he was looking for, he gave the original owner of the Buster Sword a sympathetic look, then spoke. "Kain! Follow Zack. Stay hidden and keep your distance, but if he wanders too far and runs into a fight he can't handle, help him out. I didn't drag him out of the Lifestream so that he could go and get himself killed for being hotheaded at _this _stage of the game." The purple-armored man grunted his acquiescence, and then was gone.

"Thank you," said Angeal.

"General Hewley," began Æbel. "It's good to see you alive. I'd imagine that we have a lot to talk about, you and I…"

* * *

When Angeal finally went to look for Zack, he found him in the midst of a new glade–new, because Zack Fair's idea of 'blowing off steam' was apparently to use the Buster Sword to chop down trees. Since he had been at it for so long, a good-sized clearing had formed around him, and at the edge of it, his black-haired former apprentice swung the large weapon viciously, cleaving down great ancestral old growth within minutes, each blow biting deep into the wood. Angeal nodded amicably to the dragoon, Kain, as he passed by him, Zack's grunts of effort and cries of rage echoing throughout the area. Suddenly feeling very uncertain of his course of action, the broad, sturdy man walked very cautiously up to the young man he regarded as a surrogate son.

"I…heard about what happened," he began.

Zack ignored him, his gaze stubbornly fixed on the millennia-old tree he was killing.

"I think I know…think I _understand, _now…"

If anything, Zack only swung more viciously.

"…just how much pain I caused… How much my actions must have hurt you…"

Swifter now came the blows, but beyond that, there was no change.

"And…I just wanted to say…that I'm…sorry for that…"

One tree, having seen over fifteen hundred winters, fell to the Buster Sword.

"Zack, are you even listening to me?" On to the next one. "Zack? ZACK!"

Angeal's new sword clashed against the single-edged broadsword, stopping the swing instantly and sending the sound of clashing metal spiraling out into the surrounding area.

"No, you don't…" Zack whispered, his head bowed. "You don't understand. You never did." The youth disengaged, swinging his broadsword instead at Angeal, forcing him to leap backwards. "You never even _tried. _No, everything had to be a _fucking _lecture with you, didn't it, 'Geal? Always going on about 'follow your dreams _this_' or 'protect your honor as SOLDIER _that._' So don't you _dare _pretend that you actually ever gave a damn about how I felt."

"Zack, you know that isn't true!" Angeal objected, stepping forward involuntarily.

Zack's head snapped up, tears welling up in his eyes. "_Then why did you force me to kill you, FATHER?! How could you DO that to me?!_" To that, no answers were forthcoming. "How could you _abandon _me like that?! Abandon _US_ like that?!" His frame began to quiver, and after a moment, he slouched to his knees, head bowed, tears now running freely down his face. "When you left, it was the beginning of the end. Sephiroth and I… He never showed it, but I know he relied on you to help ground him–help reaffirm his _humanity_…and for me… You were the closest thing to a father I've ever had, 'Geal. By forcing me to…to _kill _you…you did worse than orphan me again…" He brought his sword hand up into view, staring at it before clenching it into a fist. "…you made me hold the knife. Do you have any idea how that feels?" He chuckled mirthlessly in an attempt to hide a sob. "After the fact, I knew Sephiroth never blamed me, but…but _I _did, every day for the rest of my life." He paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "I couldn't get around that. The man who…who taught me how to _live my life_… He was dead, and no matter _whose_ fault it was, in the end…_I held the knife…_" His hand dropped limply to his side, and he surrendered to the sobs, allowing them to rack his body, a child who had just lost everything he knew and loved for a second time, and only now coming to terms with it.

Angeal knew not what courage flowed into him at that moment, but with it, he crossed the clearing and knelt before his surrogate son, grasping him securely by his shoulders and looking into his eyes for a moment, before pulling him into a paternal embrace. As Zack's tears wet his sweater, the first white-winged SOLDIER moved his hands up and down his back, planting a small, chaste kiss intermittently upon the normally-cheery youth's head in an attempt to soothe him. "I am sorry," he began. "I know that can never truly encompass it, but I am sorry. I acted selfishly when Genesis revealed to me our origins…I was confused and scared, but that does not change the fact that what I did–what I forced _you _to do–was completely and utterly inexcusable. And because of that, I wasn't there for you when you needed me." He reached down, lifting Zack's head up by his chin. "But I'm here now, and I swear, I will _never _abandon you again. We're in this together, you and I, and this time it's going to _stay _that way. Do you understand?"

Zack nodded, and did not resist when his surrogate father pulled him into another embrace.

At the edge of the clearing, not far away, Kain Highwind discreetly excused himself from the reunion between father and son.

* * *

Three weeks. That's how long Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE had been tracking the mysterious quintet. Twenty-one days, day in, day out, in hot pursuit of the tracks their quarry left in their wake, and yet they seemed no closer than when they began. And with Vincent's strangely simple, though mind-blowing, confession hanging in the air, making things even more awkward than normal, the forces of entropy seemed to conspire to run his stamina into the ground, such that it was growing progressively more difficult to block out the odd flashes of _déjà vu,_ the object of which he could not place for the life of him.

At the moment, they had returned to Edge City, lodging above the Seventh Heaven and trying to decide which course of action they should take, now that they knew they had lost the trail in Midgar. And not just 'lost'; it disappeared. Vanished. Cloud collapsed onto his bed in exhaustion and despair, attempting to piece together just what the quintet's plan was and failing miserably in the endeavor. To make matters worse, the revelation of Vincent's greatest secret was beginning to make the bonds of friendship that bound the group strain almost to the point of breaking, and the discovery they had made that same day–the fact that the Buster Sword had been taken–on top of that seemed to physically weigh him down.

_They made an example out of Vincent, who is also…_ He shook his head to avoid finishing that thought; it was strange enough to hear of it, and quite another order of magnitude stranger to think about it and accept its reality. _They stole the Buster Sword. And now, the Black Materia is gone, and probably in their hands… What are they after…?_

"Resurrection," came the last voice he had been hoping to hear–Vincent's–at which point Cloud began kicking himself for thinking out loud. "That's all Chaos and I can come up with. The Presence and his allies are trying, for whatever reason, to use the Black Materia to resurrect my son…Sephiroth." The gunslinger walked across the room and sat down next to Cloud on the bed. "You seem troubled."

"Yeah, I am," answered the blond. After a stretched, tense period of silence, he gave voice to the question that irked him most about the ex-Turk's revelation. "Vincent, why don't you hate me?"

"That is…a difficult question to answer," Valentine responded truthfully. "I suppose there are several reasons, many of them having to do with my failings as a…husband, and as a father. But…when I pose that same query to myself, the most predominant reason is because…I think that, by the end…my son wished nothing more than an end."

"An end? To what?"

"To the threat the Calamity posed. To the threat ShinRa posed. But most of all, I think Sephiroth desired an end to his own very painful life. Thus, by killing him, you have done better by him than I, as his father, ever did. And for that reason among others, I suppose, I cannot bring myself to hate you for giving my son the end he so desired."

"Mm…"

A relative silence permeated the room, and in a defiance of convention, the pensive gestalt entity was the first to break it.

"You know, what happened in the Forgotten Capital, I think, affected him greatly," he mused.

"How could it have?!" Cloud objected, sitting bolt upright. "He wasn't the victim!"

"And yet, what guarantee do we have that Sephiroth was in full control of his actions when he did that?" challenged Vincent, his voice calm and level as always.

"'What guarantee do we have'? He had to have been!"

Vincent fixed him with a look that was at once piercing, pitying and unfathomably sad. "Sometimes I wonder, do you honestly believe that? Or is it just what you keep telling yourself, so often that the words lose all meaning and the only thing that is left are the hopes, dreams and hatreds of the past?"

Cloud stood abruptly, turning his back on the gunslinger. "Thank you for the chat, Vincent, but I must respectfully ask you to leave," he said curtly.

The ex-Turk looked at Cloud with a melancholy smile on his face for several long moments. Then he stood, nodding. "As you will," he conceded, making to walk out, but stopping at the threshold. "Cloud? I would advise you to think on what I've said, as a comrade and…as a friend. To allow oneself to be consumed by the hatreds of the past is the worst and most inimitable kind of torture."

Cloud did not respond.

Vincent sighed ruefully, and left.

* * *

The Seventh Heaven was just closing up for the evening when the night sky erupted into a dazzling, horrifying display of light, a massive explosion sending a pillar of fire into the air and throwing chunks of superheated metal clear across the city. A moment later, the shockwave hit, and Tifa cried out as the bar's windows were shattered and blasted inwards, though she thankfully avoided being cut to ribbons thanks to Vincent's timely use of a barrier materia. The martial artist thanked the gunslinger, who in turn flashed her a genuine smile.

"What the Hell was _that?!_" asked Yuffie as she, having bolted down the stairs together with Barret, reached the first floor breathlessly.

"It came from the old ShinRa plant…" observed the ex-Turk.

_[Warriors! Come out and play!]_ cried a voice within the minds of everyone in the city.

Moments later, Cloud came bounding down the stairs, his armor on and the Fusion Swords clipped to his back. "It's them. Let's move."

"Time to bash some heads," remarked Barret. "Let's suit up and move out!"

* * *

When AVALANCHE entered the scene of the rebuilt ShinRa Headquarters building, the welcoming party was mayhem and confusion, interspersed with intermittent death, destruction and combat. Reports were at best conflicting, and at worst entirely contradictory, with the occasional outrageous claim being made, but they all seemed to agree that they were being attacked, though the _where_ and the _who _were matters for debate, and no one seemed to have the foggiest idea of the _how _or the _why_. Needless to say, the old team seemingly had their work cut out for them.

"All right, no one seems to know even _where _the enemy is attacking from, so here's how we're going to do this. Barret, Vincent, Yuffie, you go one way, while Tifa and I go another way," decided Cloud, already slipping back into his post as the leader of this motley crew.

"Hey, Cloud!" called another familiar voice. "What'm I, chopped liver?!"

"Good to see you, too, Cid," said Cloud. "You'll go with us."

"Well ain't that just peachy! The old team's back together! It's fucking good to be back!" yelled the aeronautics engineer, picking his way through the debris that littered the makeshift hospital camp that now occupied the building's main lobby.

"Right. Tifa, Cid and I will take the south stairs. Barret, Vincent and Yuffie, you take the elevator shaft," he ordered.

"Back to your old self again, I see," grumbled Yuffie, but she nevertheless followed the others as Vincent ripped apart the elevator doors, jumped across, and began to scale up the shaft. In similar fashion, Cloud's squad bolted for the south staircase, racing up the building with the sole intent of defeating their foes.

The penultimate battle royale had begun.

* * *

With no small amount of grumbling, Yuffie and Barret made it up the shaft after Vincent, whose speed in climbing was deceptive. Once they ascended to the thirty-sixth floor, upon which Chaos sensed an ally of the Presence, they regrouped, dusting themselves off, and continuing on through the corridor. The ShinRa infantry, harrowed, recognized the arrival of AVALANCHE as a much-needed relief, and with a token reassurance from the Wutain princess, they beat a swift retreat, followed in short order by the remainder of an eviscerated squadron of First Class SOLDIERs, planting a small seed of misgiving within the _kunoichi _that she stomped down upon ruthlessly. _Cut it out, Yuffie, _she told herself. _You are the heir of the Kisaragi Family of Wutai. You _never _chicken out in front of an enemy!_

The appearance of the man who caused such destruction, however, swiftly put an end to those thoughts.

"Yuffie Kisaragi, Barret Wallace and Vincent Valentine, I presume," stated the man, dressed from head to toe in red and black leather. He huffed in amusement, throwing back his head and flipping his unusually deep red hair out of his face, though his telltale SOLDIER eyes remained fixed on them with an air of cold assessment that made the ninja's skin crawl. "So these are the legendary members of AVALANCHE, hmm? I am afraid I must admit, I am feeling rather…_underwhelmed _at the moment." Without warning, he snapped his arm up, levelling the rapier he wielded at them. "Let's see if you're really as good as they say!"

* * *

Following Cid's intel, Tifa, Cloud and the engineer left the south staircase on the forty-second floor, where what greeted them was not the sound of screaming, nor the rapid retort of gunfire, but the ominous silence of a morgue. They did not need to travel much further to see why: shortly into their journey, they stopped dead, stunned at what they saw. The first intersecting corridor they came upon, once a sterile white, had recently undergone an unfinished sanguine paint-job. The blood and gore–mostly liquefied or rent shreds of organ tissue–covered almost the entirety of the walls, all of the floor, and most of the ceiling, as well, and what remnants were left behind wore the uniforms of infantrymen, carried ShinRa standard issue assault rifles, and wore the iconic trioptic helmet.

Cid let out a low whistle, his eyes wide. "Fucking Hell, what happened _here?_" he cried. "It's like these poor S.O.B.s got fed into a meat-grinder, for fuck's sake!"

"They were all killed in the space of an instant," observed Tifa.

"What makes you say that?" asked Cloud.

"Well, look," she replied. "Judging by the bullet holes in the walls, they at least _tried _to defend themselves. But the fact that all the holes were almost filled by…by the blood, tells me that whomever or whatever killed them did so before they could fire any more."

"But they could've just run out of ammo," argued the blond.

"Do _you_ see any spent clips on the ground?" she retorted.

"No…I guess not…" he mused. "But…well, Vincent said that the Presence was fast, right? So what if…what if this is _his _handiwork, and he's still down here?"

"Sound reasoning, but ultimately incorrect," remarked an unknown voice. The trio's attention snapped across the hall to the end of it, where a lean, tall figure of a man clad from head to toe in purple body armor fashioned in the iconography of a dragon, a long, strange polearm in his grasp. "Tifa Lockhart. It really _has _been far too long."

"I'm sorry, but…do I know you?" asked Tifa in no small amount of confusion.

"…No. We _have _met, and even fought together for a time, but I do not suppose you would be able to remember it," answered the man. "Allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Kain. Kain Highwind." He gave a short though polite bow.

"Highwind, huh?" scoffed Cid, stepping forth and unclipping the spear from his back. "Sorry, fucker, but there's only _one _Highwind in this world, and it ain't you!"

"Though your manner be uncouth, I concur with the sentiment," said Kain, beginning to twirl his polearm slowly. "When it comes to Highwinds, _there can be only one._" With that, he snapped into a balanced stance, his hand outstretched in front of him and his weapon tip-down with its shaft running up the back of his arm. "_Have at you!_"

* * *

_Shit, _Yuffie swore to herself, once more ducking behind cover and lowering her oversized shruiken just in time to avoid the fireball that came flying towards her. _I can't get so much as a good shot at the guy! _She looked across the corridor and saw that Barret was faring no better, while Vincent focused on casting barrier after barrier to protect them from the explosive detonations the Firaga spells caused. _And here I thought the Crimson Commander of ShinRa was dead!_

"You're going to have to do better than that," taunted Genesis. "I'm beginning to tire of this little game of trench warfare you have going on here. Though it _is _amusing, I must admit seeing the scion of the great Kisaragi Family of Wutai hiding with her comrades like a frightened rat, cowering behind cover like that…"

_Oh no, he did NOT,_ she thought. Before Vincent could hold her back, Yuffie rolled out from cover and threw her shruiken at the man in red, screaming out, "EAT THIS!" in anger. The rapier, however, flashed out and sliced the weapon in half as soon as it came into range, and this, combined with the fact that Genesis's smirk had widened into an amused grin, gave her just enough time to think to herself, _Fuck. My. Life._

"_YUFFIE!_" cried out Vincent, and a moment later she felt her arm being nearly wrenched out of her socket as the ex-Turk pulled her out of the way just in time to avoid the line of eight consecutive fireballs that landed where she had just been an instant prior. "Recklessness like _that_ will get you _killed! _He's _trying _to egg you on, and you'll look more the fool for playing to his whims and ending up a streak of boiled _fat_ on the wall than for doing the _prudent _thing and hiding!" he admonished in a loud, angry whisper. She nodded mutely.

Vincent sighed. "But perhaps you _are _correct, in a way. If we don't attack, we'll stay on the defensive until Rhapsodos becomes bored and simply immolates us. Take my gun, Yuffie. Be sure to use two hands, unless you want to irreparably break your arm–and probably the shoulder, as well. I'll keep a barrier on you. BARRET! Give Yuffie some covering fire." The burly, dark-skinned man nodded curtly, his cybernetic arm morphing into a high-caliber firearm at his mental command. "Ready? GO!"

* * *

The polearm, glowing sky-blue, silhouette momentarily indistinct, ripped through Cid's midsection with such violent force that blood and bits of ruptured lung erupted from his mouth and added to the gory mess the ceiling was becoming. For Cloud and Tifa, it was as if they were watching in slow motion, from the purple-armored lancer's battle cry of 'Feel my strength!' and Cid's charge to the moment at which they clashed, the dragoon bending and spinning with almost inhuman dexterity around the foul-mouthed engineer's straight drive to dodge it, while his own attack–_the Dragon's Fang, _Tifa's mind supplied, though she knew not from where–struck true. The explosive force of the technique did not allow for Kain Highwind to stop, and so instead he let it provide forward momentum until the mass of his body overcame the force of his own inertia, stopping him.

Just like that, Cid Highwind was dead, killed in the space of an instant.

Kain was the first to break the silence. "He fought with honor, and died a warrior's death. May he rest in peace."

"_You monster!_" cried Tifa. "He had a wife and a child! How could you…"

"His son will grow up knowing his father died a hero. That's a far better card than most orphans get dealt," the dragoon interrupted.

"It's not just that," argued Cloud, his voice quietly quivering with rage. "He was our _friend! _And you _killed _him!"

"You say that, and yet conveniently forget that _he_ challenged _me,_" observed Kain.

"But you didn't have to kill him!"

"He would have killed me otherwise," the knight retorted. "That is how it is between warriors. We face each other on the field of battle, fight, and at the end, one of us dies, and dies with honor. But I would not expect one such as _you _to understand, Cloud Strife. Olliver was correct; you are no warrior."

"That doesn't change the fact that he was our comrade," Tifa countered. "Nor does it change the fact that you killed him. And for that, you're going to pay."

The dragon knight sighed in what seemed like exasperation. "By the Crystals… Fine, then. If you _must_ fight me, then so be it. I shall allow it. But only for _you, _Tifa, out of respect for your abilities, _and_ as a former comrade-in-arms. Strife, however, must continue onwards; my companions have expressed a desire to meet him in combat, and far be it for me to refuse them _that._"

"I'll be fine," assured Tifa, silencing whatever objections the blond was preparing to voice. "You go on ahead."

Cloud hesitated. "You're sure?"

Tifa gave a curt nod.

The blond sighed. "Good luck, then, Tifa." He bounded around the dragoon and proceeded on upwards via the north stairs.

"Thanks," she replied, a faint, regretful smile on her face despite herself.

"You love him," observed Kain. "Though he is too dense to realize it. You wonder if he will ever return your feelings, and for that, you take care of him and spend your life with him, even though the fact that the Cetra girl's ghost haunts him still brings you such pain that, at times, you feel as though your heart is going to rip itself in half. You look at him with such…longing, even now. It at once distresses and heartens me to see this." The dragoon chuckled. "What if I told you the answer? What would you do then, I wonder? Would you be interested to hear it?"

"Why don't you just shut up and fight?!" she huffed brusquely, shifting into the stance of the Leaping Tiger Form and extending the blades of the pair of knuckles she had chosen, the Dragon's Claw, hating vehemently the blush on her face.

"Hmph," chuckled the knight, letting the corner of his mouth twitch upwards into a small, mirthful smirk. He twirled his lance end over end, finally snapping back into his former battle-stance, his hand outstretched, aiming at her. "As you wish."

* * *

_Well, fuck. That hurt,_ thought Yuffie, flat on her arse and momentarily stunned, looking up at the tall frame of Genesis Rhapsodos with his back turned towards her, the rapier hanging readily in his grasp at his side. _Thankfully, Vinnie's barrier prevented me from being sliced in half, but still… _Then, she began to grow angry. _Why the Hell can't we _beat _this guy?! I know he's Genesis Rhapsodos and all, but jeez, we're _AVALANCHE_! We beat _Sephiroth_! So why is this guy so strong, even when facing not one, not two, but _three_ of us? _Incensed, the ninja cast her gaze about wildly in search of Vincent's gun; spotting it, she lunged for the weapon and fired at the man in red, growing progressively more ticked off as he whirled about, the red blade of his rapier slashing through the air and slicing the high-caliber projectile in half. Neither were her comrades able to capitalize on the momentary distraction, for he continued in his pivot and whirled the weapon through the air, deflecting or halving the bullets Barret emptied in his direction, aiming for him while his back was turned. Another section of the turn cut the gun in half with a single slash, and when he finally completed the second rotation, he casually sent a Thundaga spell flying down the shivering length of his blade and straight for Barret's gun-arm, causing it to explode into smoking fragments of silvery gunmetal. Vincent rushed over to the grizzled soldier, casting a quick-fix Cure spell on the bleeding stump of his limb, then executed a flawless power-slide across the corridor and sending something flying end-over-end through the air, which she caught deftly in her left hand.

A sword.

Only standard-issue SOLDIER, but it would do.

The Crimson Commander reacted with admirable speed to deflect her sudden strike, and reposted almost instantaneously. Thankfully, she, too, was able to react quickly enough to deflect his counter. Suddenly on far more even ground, the Wutain princess felt much more in her element, and the kata came to her almost as if her motions were guided by the hand of Bishamonten himself. Using her lithe, waifish form to her advantage, she was able to avoid blows that the more shapely Tifa might have been forced to block, thus leaving herself open to another avenue of attack, or take, which would slow her down in the long run, especially if the wound received was grievous. Unfortunately, Rhapsodos was rather talented with his long rapier, but Yuffie had a trick up her sleeve–one so clever and so simple that she had trouble keeping her expression neutral just thinking about it.

Her thrust was parried and countered, such that she found herself staggering back from the infuriating man, the kunoichi decided that that moment was the most opportune time she would probably get to show her hand. As Genesis pressed the attack, she allowed her best approximation of an amused, knowing smirk to spread upon her face, and though it did not cause her opponent to hesitate–much to her chagrin–it _did _cause a quizzical expression to appear there, making her nearly giddy with internalized, mischievous, _malicious_ glee.

"You're probably wondering," she began, speaking in between the clashes of metal that the collisions of their blades caused, "why I'm so calm." Parry, counter, strike, block riposte, repeat. "Well, I only think that it's fair to warn you that…" she continued, catching his blow near the hilt of her blade and putting as much weight as she could into it, disengaging in such a way that it would repel him and give her a moment to breathe. "…I'm not left-handed." She grinned, switching the SOLDIER standard-issue sword from her left hand to her right, then retaking her stance and waiting for his reaction.

He chuckled in return. "Really? What a coincidence…" he replied, switching the rapier to his right hand as well. "…because I'm not, either."

Yuffie's face twisted into an expression of childlike revulsion and irritation. "_NO FAIR!_" she cried, her voice annoyingly shrill.

He responded with a full-throated laugh.

* * *

Tifa caught the head of the polearm in between her crossed Dragon's Claws, pulling them up and apart from each other in a move that disengaged and repulsed the armament's rather large head. Her opponent rolled with that momentum, arcing up and down and bringing the lance to bear in a full thrust, and in turn, she turned the tip aside, using that momentum to send her slipping down the shaft of the dragoon's weapon, ready to plant the Claws in his face, only to find him spinning and sweeping her legs out from under her with that shaft, following with a strong kick to her midsection, which sent her flying through the drywall boundaries of several cubicles. The martial artist scrambled to her feet just in time to dodge the dragon knight's jump attack, and when that chained into a quick flurry of three narrow slashes, followed by a series of three successive, short-range thrusts, she utilized her momentum to weave within the offensive, evading each blow by bending back and staying _just _out of reach. When she had neutralized _that_ threat, she batted the weapon aside and lunged, a Claw-enhanced punch aimed at his heart the spear-point of her counter-offensive, but found her endeavor foiled as Kain leapt back nimbly, wheeling his lance through the air before snapping it to his side and back, point down, shaft running the length of his arm, with his other arm before him, two fingers before his face as a kind of marker, like a crosshair. That final detail escaped Tifa, who, fueled by a rage that was sent into overflowing by his deft evasion of her blow, executed a technique she had not used since the final battle against Sephiroth in the Northern Crater.

The Final Heaven.

Tifa pivoted on her heel to survey the damage she had done to her opponent, noting the dual streak of soot on the floor, followed by a radial sunburst and then the continuation of that streak, thus coming to the conclusion that the technique was far more powerful than when she had used it last, and returning hastily to her battle stance as she realized, with no small degree of incredulity, that Kain had not perished from the blast. Indeed, after a moment, the dragoon stood from his kneeling position, using the shaft of his lance to help him, coughed, and turned to her, chuckling. "I must confess, you surprise me, Miss Lockhart," he began, wiping a trickle of blood from his mouth with his off-hand. "You are still every inch the kind-hearted warrior I remember. But I'm afraid you'll have to do far better than _that_ if you wish to defeat me, let alone the rest of my comrades."

"Well then, why don't you come here and let me show you what I'm _really _capable of?!" she taunted in anger, beckoning to him mockingly.

"Do not mistake me, I am perhaps even more eager than you to discern that in truth," he replied. "Unfortunately, as much as I would love to continue our duel, your friends will soon have need of you, and I would be remiss in my duties were I to keep you from them." He tilted his head back to look upwards. "The hour of the success of our grand endeavor is nigh. Time grows short. Another time, then, we may continue this." With that, he turned his back to her and began to walk away.

"Come back here and fight, you…you…_BASTARD!_" cried Tifa, incensed.

He laughed. "One can only hope that if and when our paths cross once more, it shall be on friendlier terms," he said, turning his head to address her over his armored shoulder. "Until then, I must bid thee farewell…_Tifa._" With that, he aligned his body, grasping the Gáe Bolg in both hands, crouching and executing a move that the martial artist somehow recognized as a Rising Drive, moving upwards at an incredible speed. Shortly thereafter, he was gone.

The bartender stared up, open-mouthed, at the tunnel the dragoon had left in his wake for several seconds, stupefied by the feat she had just witnessed, until his words of warning at last registered in her mind. "Damn!" she swore, turning on her heel and storming purposefully, chagrinned by the knowledge that she was not capable of performing such an act, towards the route Cloud had used to exit, following after him.

She did not notice that Cid's eyes had been closed.

* * *

_Goddamn arrogant cock-sucking mother-fucking prick of all pricks!_ thought Yuffie, aware of both how unladylike and how Cid-like the sentiments she expressed inwardly were, and likewise uncaring on both counts. Her petulant rage kept adrenaline flowing through her veins, and the fact that this was probably the only way she had managed to hold her own against her illustrious and admittedly gorgeous opponent for so long–a fact of which she was by no means ignorant–served only to piss her off even further; yet even the restorative properties of the performance-enhancing hormone had their limits, and the Wutain princess was only all too aware that she was quickly reaching them. Aside from the occasional Thundaga or Firaga tossed down the corridor in the general direction of her friends, he was completely and utterly without relent, and it was all she could do to remain on the defensive, even though the odd kick or shove connected every so often. _And it might not be so bad, if he would get rid of that stupid, arrogant, self-centered, self-satisfied, condescending, absolutely _infuriating _SMIRK!_

All of a sudden, he stopped, as if someone had flipped a switch. The abrupt halt in the flow of combat threw Yuffie off-balance, and though she was able to save face by turning her stumbling and wind-milling into a forward flip, landing suitably gracefully in a half-crouch, half-kneel, she was now confused_ on top _of being thoroughly and resoundingly pissed off.

The sound of the rapier slipping into its sheath only multiplied her confusion by several powers of ten, and shot her rage a full order of magnitude higher, even, than it had been when the Crimson Commander replicated her hand-trick. Never mind that he had done it first! He stole her thunder! "Well, kiddo, this has been fun. Really," said Genesis, ruffling the kunoichi's hair with his red-gloved left hand, to which she responded with a low, vaguely canine growl. "But unfortunately, I really must be going. You know how it is–places to go, people to see, deadlines to meet…and speaking of which, it seems that you're going to have to catch up with your other friends. Don't worry, I won't keep you. It was nearly time for me to be done here, in any case, so I guess this is good-bye." He turned and walked away from her, allowing the other two to rush forwards and help Yuffie up, even as she cursed up a storm with vocabulary enough to make a seasoned mariner blush, and at the end of the corridor opposite the entrance, after taking a moment to cast a mild freezing spell using a mastered ice materia upon the nearest of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined that side of the floor, he turned around to face them once again. "Well, this is it. Catch you later, AVALANCHE!"

With that, he threw his arms out wide, and the window-pane upon which he had cast the spell (and, incidentally, now stood before the exact middle thereof) spider-webbed and shattered. At that precise moment, a single large, black, feathered wing erupted from his left shoulder-blade (though impossibly, his coat remained undamaged in the process), and with one powerful beat of that wing, he took advantage of the sudden gusts of wind that rushed through the new portal at such a high altitude, drifting gracefully up, out of the building, and into mid-air. One downbeat of that solitary wing, and he took to the skies.

"Awfully dramatic, isn't he?" Vincent observed dryly.

Barret chuckled ruefully, running his remaining hand through his corn-rolled hair, but the scion of the royal Kisaragi family took no notice, so intent was she on fuming at the memory of the actions of her departed foe, as well as the indignities those actions had made her suffer–stealing her thunder, ruining her puns, being so downright _infuriating…_

Something hit her as Rhapsodos's words filtered through the haze of the kunoichi's ire. As her brain needed only a few seconds to decode them, and thus to allow them to register with the cognitive functions of her prefrontal lobe, the task did not take long so finish, and with the completion of that mental process, the realization of their meaning dawned on her so suddenly that Vincent and Chaos both fancied they could see a little copper microfilament light-bulb above her head illuminate with a cartoonish 'ding!'. Her face twisted, and all of the personalities within the gestalt being braced themselves for the oncoming, exceedingly shrill exclamation.

"_THAT BASTARD WAS __**STALLING **__US?!_"

* * *

Cloud stepped out of the stairwell and onto the ninety-ninth floor of the new ShinRa HQ, the Fusion Swords resting, unsheathed, upon his shoulder as the iconic SOLDIER eyes he possessed swept around the relatively bare, unfurnished level of the office building. Seeing nothing, his mind began to wander, and suddenly only half of him was present in that facility, while the other half was immersed in memory–sitting upon the bed of his room in the Seventh Heaven, talking with Vincent; weathering the ex-Turk's question with his back turned towards him after he asked the newfound father of his enemy to leave; standing stock-still in horror as the point of Kain Highwind's lance ripped through Cid's body, killing him in a way that was as gruesome as it was mercifully instantaneous; abandoning Tifa to face off against that same man with the chastisement that, for some unknown reason, cut deeply; being impaled on the blade of Masamune, wielded by a Sephiroth that had emerged by possessing the body of the remnant, Kadaj; watching helplessly as that same blade pierced the heart of the half-Cetra flower girl, Aeris; powerless to act as Zack was cut down…

"Well, well, well. Long time no see, eh, Cloud?" came a youthful, suave, nightmarishly _familiar_ voice, ripping him from his reverie with the sheer staggering impossibility of its presence, the accompanying metallic clang as the Fusion Sword clashed to the ground even as it remained in his suddenly loose grasp strangely apropos.

"Z…Zack?!" exclaimed the incredulous, suddenly breathless blond.

"In the flesh," came the response as the figure to match the voice stepped out of the shadows of the floor and into the moonlight that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows lining either side of the level. "Though I gotta say, I'm awful surprised at where I found _this._" He unclipped an equally familiar, gargantuan broadsword from his back and bringing it into view; Cloud, in turn, gaped at the sight of the weapon he had not seen in three years:

The Buster Sword.

"N…no…" muttered the blond, stepping backwards and away from the specter from his past only half-consciously, eyes locked on the blade even as he swung his head back and forth in desperate denial of the notion that dawned in his head. "But that must mean…"

"Yes?" prompted Zack, the small, friendly smile he wore not reaching his eyes.

"…that you're with _THEM,_" he finished, eyes blazing.

"Got it in one," congratulated the black-haired SOLDIER. "Give the guy a prize!"

"But…_why?_" asked Cloud, his voice hoarse with betrayal. "_Why, _Zack?!"

"Y'know, I called you my 'living legacy' once, Cloud. Do you remember? No, don't answer. Rhetorical question," he began, beginning to pace back and forth in a slow, languid manner. "But after a short stay in the Lifestream to cool off, I realized what a gigantic mistake I'd made, and so I came down here to correct that…_error._"

"_BE FUCKING SERIOUS, ZACK!_" shouted the blond. The other stopped abruptly.

"You want an honest answer?!" he shouted right back, turning towards Cloud. "FINE! I joined them because of Aeris!"

_Aeris? _"You got a lot of nerve, using her like that…" murmured Strife.

"'Nerve'? She was _my _girlfriend!" returned Zack, outraged. "I came back because _she _was unhappy!"

"Look I'm _sorry _I couldn't stop her from being murdered, alright?!" cried the blond. "Is that what you want?! A fucking _apology?!_"

"_NO!_" he shouted. "It was _her _sacrifice to make! If after all these years, you can't respect that, or at least understand it, then you never deserved to travel with her in the _first _place! All she ever wanted, _really, _was to find some _fucking _understanding! Do you even have any idea what that's _like, _going through life without finding anyone who understood the most _basic facts of your existence?!_" Zack huffed angrily, running a hand through his hair before snapping his arm up, pointing the Buster Sword at Cloud. "I don't even know why I'm wasting my breath on you, Strife. You just…you just _don't fucking get it! _But you know what? I _really _don't give a damn anymore. On your feet, _Private! _Face me with at least _some _semblance of fucking dignity, damn you!"

Cloud grasped the hilt of the Fusion Swords in both hands, fury and indignation making him see red. When Zack charged, Cloud answered, both of them with an unintelligible battle cry born of searing rage and cloying frustration upon their lips as their blades clashed. As one, they disengaged, but Cloud attacked first with a furious Cross-slash, putting the tremendous weight of his weapon behind every blow. In response, his opponent evaded each wild slash, and only when the blond went to perform Braver did he bring the Buster Sword up to parry, following with his own slash to disengage and send Cloud airborne for a few second, then connecting to his midsection with a disciplined, forceful kick, knocking the air from his lungs and sending him flying through the air to crash painfully against the opposite wall.

"Your stance is off-balance," pronounced Zack. "Your strikes are sloppy. Your grip is as unstable as it is insecure–frankly, it's a wonder you haven't broken your fucking wrists yet!–and, perhaps worst of all, _you fight mad!_" He sighed. "Undisciplined. Untrained. Uncontrolled. That kind of performance might've been enough when the toughest opponents you were facing off against were the dishonorable trash, useless meatheads, cocky hotheads and sadistic _punks_ ShinRa streamlined to the rank of 'SOLDIER First Class' after 'Geal died, but against me or any other reasonably well-trained swordsman? Not gonna cut it. Not a shot in the dark." He pointed the Buster Sword at Cloud's prone form. "Now I see why you failed that piece-of-shit _entrance exam_ three times. You're just not SOLDIER _material,_ Strife. You don't _deserve_ it."

"_Cloud!_" cried Tifa as she burst out of the stairwell.

"Tifa…" he replied weakly.

As she rushed to his side and crouched down to check that he was alright, Zack lowered the Buster Sword and let out a low whistle. "Well if you aren't a sight for sore eyes! How long has it been, Tifa? Nine years? Ten?" He brought up the Buster Sword to rest on his shoulder, suppressing a chuckle as she turned to him, eyes wide with disbelief. "Well, _you've _certainly aged well. Looks like you've grown a full _cup size _or two since the last time I saw you, eh?"

"…_Zack Fair?!_" she gasped, eyes wide as she stood up to get a better look.

"Know anyone _else _with such awesome hair?" he responded glibly. "Don't mind us. I was just giving Chocobo Head here"–he jerked his chin up to indicate Cloud–"a little remedial lesson on swordplay. Just a little bit of horsing around. Honest!"

"He's…with _them,_" Cloud managed.

"Did I mention you're a sore loser?" admonished Zack.

"_You _did this to him?!" cried Tifa.

"Mm-hmm."

"_You…_did _this…_to _him._"

"Yup." He made sure to pop the '_p_'.

She was speechless and struggling for words when the other three burst onto the scene, almost falling over each other in perfect comic fashion. Grumbling ensued, but, as usual, Yuffie was the first to regain her voice. "Tifa, what's going on?"

"You did this to Cloud," growled Tifa. "_You…hurt…Cloud._"

"He'll get over it. Really, it's good for him. Builds character," joked Zack.

"Even if it takes me a hundred years… Even if it breaks every bone in my body… Even if it _kills _me… _I WILL RIP YOU IN __**HALF!**_" she screamed, consumed by absolute fury.

"Hurt one of us, ya hurt _all _o' us," grumbled Barret, taking his place by Tifa as the other two followed suit, though Vincent took a minute to help Cloud back to his feet. "And if ya hurt _all _o' us…sorry, fool, but you gonna _pay._"

"Cute," commented another voice, even as it stepped from the shadows. "Cheesy, but cute." Angeal turned to Zack. "Kain and Genesis are on the roof. You need a hand?"

"How much time we got?" asked Zack, lowering the Buster Sword into a two-handed grip even as he assumed his battle stance.

"None," replied Hewley.

"Hell, why not? Thanks, 'Geal," the prodigal son answered.

"Don't mention it," responded Angeal, freeing a two-handed _jian _from its sheath, which was attached to the back of his SOLDIER harness, and readying it. "Besides, I haven't had a good fight in a little over a decade. Been feeling a bit rusty lately, and frankly, it's a great way to get back into practice."

"Great. _Try _to keep up, old man," Zack joked.

The corners of Angeal's mouth quirked up into a small smile. "Noted."

The assembled members of AVALANCHE barely had enough time to shake off the surprise of seeing the legendary Angeal Hewley alive and well once more before he and Fair were upon them, and then mayhem ensued. Barret, having trained to be proficient with his left hand before receiving the upgrade to his gun-arm, was at least able to defend himself with a standard-issue SOLDIER sword he had scavenged, but due to the damage done to the mechanical limb, he was largely out of the count, at least as far as the battle was concerned. Having been a former Turk, Vincent, too, was able to wield another scavenged blade, although more competently than Barret for the supplementary sword training he had undertaken to prepare for a similar occasion. As a result, though his favored weapon, his handgun, had been destroyed, the downgrade to his participation in combat as a result of the very real drop in his potential damage output was almost minimal. Plus, surprisingly enough, he and Yuffie made a very good team in battle, and since she elected to stay close to him, brandishing her own scavenged blade, they utilized that unlikely fact to great effect. But Tifa…

Tifa was a _lioness. _

Her rage fueled her, and she channeled that anger into every strike, increasing both her speed and the power of each blow she landed. Cloud played back-up to her, doing his best to complement her when he could, but he was largely unneeded; her berserker fury, coupled with her extensive training in hand-to-hand combat, was a thing to behold.

With this, however, came a price; since the team moved as a unit in battle, and Tifa's performance made her the nucleus of that unit, they were easily herded. Remaining conscious of the time they were losing, Angeal and Zack did not fully commit to the battle, and instead spurred the group as subtly as they dared up to the roof of the building. As Tifa and the rest burst out of the roof access door, the pair unfurled their wings in unison, and as one, they lifted away in opposite directions, leaving the suddenly target-less bartender with a sight that beat the lioness that was her anger to death with a puppy.

On the roof before them was a woman in a lab coat and glasses, her hand extended over a perimeter circle of a much grander and more complex cyclical seal, a dark liquid that she could only assume was blood pouring from her loose fist, suggesting an unseen cut on her palm. Every other circle on the perimeter of that seal was occupied with _something_; however, disconcertingly enough, each thing was either what she assumed was blood or a flask containing it, and in the center of the seal was planted a strange staff, the head of which was a large, familiar gem–none other than the notorious Black Materia, to her absent horror.

"Lucrecia…" called Vincent, dumbstruck.

The woman turned. "_Vincent?!_" she squeaked, looking at him wide-eyed as her now-open hand was wrapped carefully in gauze, covered with markings, by a tall, dark figure, too deep in shadow for any details to be discerned.

"Ah. AVALANCHE. How nice of you all to be so very…_punctual,_" spoke the figure, and in moments, he stepped into the moonlight.

"Æbel," growled Cloud, stepping forth with the Fusion Swords readied.

"And Cloud Strife. _Wonderful,_" he purred maliciously. "And here I thought you'd have turn tail and run home by now, He Who Bears the Hound of Odin. It…_pleases _me, in a way, to know that I was wrong. Its novelty aside–and I assure you, these days it is very, _very _novel for me to be mistaken in just about _anything_–it makes my job much simpler, and saves me from having to do a lot of…unpleasant legwork, let's call it."

"Of course not. Warriors don't back down," replied the blond.

"Ah, but have you not listened to a_ word _of what you were told?" he countered. "You're _not _a warrior, Strife. You lack discipline. Control. Commitment. Composure. _Perspective._" He chuckled, stepping forth in front of the seal and drawing his sword from its too-small (yet impossibly perfectly sized) sheath with a hiss too serpentine to be purely metallic. "Though perhaps I am mistaken, as I was with the course of action you ultimately elected to take. So this is your chance to prove that to me, Strife." He lifted his _ōdachi _in his one-handed grip and pointed it at Cloud, his face going from mocking and mirthful to deathly serious. "I have heard tell of a technique you possess–a technique that is supposedly unable to be blocked. I must admit, the tales made me curious. Thus do I challenge you, Cloud Strife: take up your sword and strike me down with your 'Omnislash'. Succeed in this, and I will have been mistaken about you. Perhaps I may even allow you to stop me."

"How will I have any guarantees that you'll keep your word?"

"So confident," said he, an amused smirk worn upon his face like a mask, for his eyes burned, and his aura exuded gravity. "Is it confidence in truth, I wonder? Or are you merely brazen? Only time will tell, I suppose. Know this, Strife: accept and succeed, and I may allow you to stop me. Accept and fail, and you shall stand no chance. Deny me, however, and I will slaughter each and every one of your precious friends, slowly, one by one, and force you to watch each time I do so. Then, and only then, when your world lies in ashes for the sake of your foolishness, shall I allow you to die. And as a _personal _favor to you, I shall begin with the lovely Miss Lockhart."

"Nggh…" gasped Cloud, his teeth clenched and his lips curled back to bare them. "Fine. Then I accept your challenge. I have no choice."

His gaze softened minutely as he lowered Kangetsu. "I will give my word of honor that your friends shall remain unharmed. Does this comfort you?"

Cloud responded with a look of begrudging gratitude. "Here I go," he muttered.

Allowing the fear he felt for his friends, his desperation, his _anger _and _indignation_ to fuel him, as it had in the battle in the Northern Crater, Cloud shot forth like a bullet from a gun, tearing up a trench of cement beneath him as he went. When he reached his target, he executed each slash with the weight and momentum of those emotions behind them, but he very nearly faltered when he saw what was happening, what had never happened before.

_He failed to connect!_

None of the fourteen individual slashes connected; instead, his opponent _dodged _them: he _leaned _in the same direction in which each slash traveled, the motion bringing him _just _far enough ahead of the motion of the slash that he was able to duck _under _it, with every duck stepping back and evading, and in this way, every single one of the slashes whistled over his head, failing to disturb on its own so much as a single hair. His desperation growing, he leapt back, jumped and flipped high in the air, bringing down the blade with terminal velocity, until, with a horrifying shriek of yielding metal, it _stopped._

Kangetsu parried the Fusion Swords. Its edge bit deep into the blade.

With a motion almost too fast to see, his weapon was sent flying, and Cloud with it. His opponent followed. Desperation spiking, he wheeled the sword in mid-air, and with a cry of '_Omnislash Ultima!'_, he struck; the strike was blocked, and the Fusion Swords split into their six components, held in the air with a blue light. As with Sephiroth three years prior, each sword struck in succession, but unlike that time, his opponent merely let his leap carry him higher, and when the swords altered their course to follow, he slashed six times; those slashes with Kangetsu, though they did not physically touch any of the Fusion Swords, created narrow waves that travelled through the air, slicing each and every one of them neatly in half. This gathered and focused the waves, and Cloud found himself broadsided from the sky by that focused, concussive blast that resulted. He fell to the roof, _hard,_ his Fusion Swords little more than twisted, misshapen lumps of metal that clattered to the cement surface around him. His opponent, on the other hand, returned to the ground gracefully, his clothing and bearing impeccable, none the worse for wear.

Tifa made to rush for him, but found her way suddenly blocked; she looked up, chagrined, and Kain looked back at her, purposefully shaking his head in warning. She wanted now even more to rush forth to spite him, but her instincts overwhelmingly concurred with the dragoon's assessment, and so she stayed put.

"So that was the invincible 'Omnislash,'" said Æbel, as Cloud struggled to his feet. "_Pathetic. _Stand, Cloud Strife, and witness…"–he assumed the _gedan-no-kamae_–"…a _true _Omnislash!"

To Cloud, it looked like there were nine blades of Kangetsu coming towards him all at once. He made to do his best to dodge, but a thought struck him with the gravity of burial, a knowledge as certain and incontrovertible as the duality of life and death; an epiphany.

_I…can't dodge this._

When it hit, there was no pain, for there was nothing that _was not _pain. An instant this lasted, and no more. The instant concluded, and suddenly there were eight distinct nicks on his body, and a stab wound through his ribs, _just _missing his heart. Nonetheless, he staggered and fell, projectile-vomiting his own blood, and before unconsciousness took him into its gentle embrace, he perceived his opponent's parting words.

"_Kagemusha-ryū: Kuzuryūsen._"

* * *

"_CLOUD!_" shrieked Tifa, tears of terror running freely down her face as she bolted for the blond's body, bloody and unconscious, and this time, Kain did not stop her.

"He'll live," said the vampire, his tone slightly callous. Ignoring the glare she sent him, he strolled forwards unperturbed. "He needs immediate medical attention, though. You can give him that."

"You mean you'll just…_let us go?!_"

"All of you, Lucrecia included. AVALANCHE, I have no further use for. I got what I needed. Vincent, Lucrecia, Genesis, Zack, Angeal, Kain, kindly wait nearby. This bloody business will be concluded relatively shortly. Go. _Now._"

Without a word, they all scrambled to leave, his back turned towards them. Shocked, Tifa gathered up Cloud's broken body and made to leave. She hesitated at the threshold, and turned back to him. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

A curt nod over his shoulder was her response, and then she, too, left.

The black swordsman cleaned Kangetsu of blood with a flick of his wrist, making certain it all landed within the boundaries of the single remaining circle, dragging the sword, restrained into katana form, across the crevice created by his thumb and the cusp of the _saya_, sharply changing the angle, sliding the sword home, and then began the ritual for which he had done so much preparation, arms outstretched.

"_Voco ad auct__ō__rit__ā__t__ē__s tenebr__ā__rum!_" he intoned. Deep purple thunderheads moved in from all four corners of the horizon with unearthly speed, blocking out the moon. "_Aud__ī__te voc__ā__ti__ō__nem meum obed__ī__teque imper__ā__ta mea!_" The air crackled with energy so dense that it almost visibly manifested itself as bolts of white-hot plasma. "_Sanguis m__ā__tris, volunt__ā__riae eius datus est!_" The circle containing the blood of Lucrecia Crescent was consumed in flame the color of the Lifestream. "_Sanguis patris, de pugn__ā__ captus est!_" The circle containing the flask of blood extracted from Vincent Valentine was also engulfed in fire. "_Gladius martyris, sacrific__ā__tur gr__ā__tiae am__ī__c__ī__!_" The circle around the lifeblood Angeal had given for the cause met the kiss of the conflagration as well. "_Pars anim__ī__ am__ī__c__ī__ tr__ā__ditorque, obl__ā__t__ī__cius in __ā__ctum contr__ī__ti__ō__nis!_" Likewise, the circle in which was contained the first materia Genesis Rhapsodos had ever mastered–a fire materia, unsurprisingly enough–and as such, his most prized possession, was also engulfed in the mystical inferno. "_C__ompōnensque ultimus: īnsolentia puerīlis, cōnfractus creāre quem novum!_" Finally, the last circle, bearing the blood taken from Cloud, illuminated in the same fashion, and the lines linking circle to circle ignited. The inner circles followed, each symbol inscribed therein flashing to life and rising to hover in mid-air above their previous resting places, their glow pulsating but growing steadily. "_Venī ad meum! Noli manere in memoria! Saevam iram, iram et dolorem! Estuans interius ira vehementi! Nunc venī! Venī scīreque ad meum! Ūne Ālāte Angele! Sephiroth! Sephiroth!_"

The runes, each facing the center circle, projected beams of energy that converged at that point, creating a ball of that energy that pulsed with increasing frequency before flashing with a blinding greenish-bluish-white brilliance and blasting a vertical beam both up to the stars and down to the planetary core, and the ground quaked from the shock. But soon, the point of convergence for the beams of energy rose into the air, the angle of the beams changing accordingly, and then, as swiftly as the vertical beam was deployed, it snapped back into place and the convergence point seemed to undergo a sort of supernova, a shockwave of energy the color of the Lifestream blasting outwards at the same time the point itself burned white-hot, knocking out the runes and allowing the body to remain self-sustained for a tense minute. When the smoke cleared, the convergence winked out of existence, and in its place resolved the body of a man, tall and slender, dressed all in black with long, straight, lustrous silver hair, an angular, elegant but obviously masculine face, hardened by war and suffering, and eyes with the pupils of a cat and irises that glowed the color of jade, carrying in his hand an _ōdachi _named after the man who had taught him to use it, a weapon terribly, horrifyingly familiar to the members of AVALANCHE and the comrades with which the man had once fought. The man floated gracefully down to alight upon the center of the ritual seal, elegance, decorum and leashed lethal intent exuding from his every motion. The swordsman turned his head towards the vampire, his luminescent gaze fixing upon eyes that were similar, yet different, with a piercing intensity and overpowering focus.

And then, he spoke.

"I understand you've been looking for me."


	4. Chapter 4: Absolution

Kain Highwind leaned against the wall of the hospital room, looking on from his place besides Angeal, Zack and Genesis at the prone form of Cloud Strife, unconscious in the hospital bed. Tifa sat there at his bedside, clutching at his hand and only half-listening, it seemed, to the doctor's evaluation. He cocked his head forth to listen in for later, when he was certain that he wished to be ready to explain when a detailed explanation will be called upon.

"These wounds are really something," remarked the doctor. "The nicks that are visible actually cut deep–to the bone, in fact, if our scans are accurate. What's _especially _interesting is the fact that they are all so incredibly fine that the flesh will be able to knit itself back together as if they were only as minor as their outward appearance. The concern is the chest wound, but even _that _missed the heart, the lungs and all major blood vessels. He'll be fine, but he was obviously quite clearly outclassed. I'd advise him to put his sword up on the wall and declare himself permanently retired. The toll on his body should these incidents keep occurring will accumulate to open these wounds in short order, bleeding him to death or leaving him a practical quadriplegic, not to mention the significant drop in his…chances of procreation, to put it in as delicate a manner as I can."

"So what you're saying is, he's finished?" came a female voice that caused the faces of every member of AVALANCHE in conscious attendance (which did not include Vincent) to turn ashen, then their heads to whip around to stare at the new arrival.

"_…AERIS?!_" they cried as one.

Kain turned his head to regard the new entrant, noting with approval that it was indeed the half-Cetra flower girl who stood at the threshold, braid and all, though looking as though she had aged along with the others over the past half-decade. "Yes, it's me," she returned curtly. "Now Doctor, if you would please be so kind as to answer my question?"

"Y…Yes, Miss…er…Gainsborough, was it?" replied the doctor. "Due to the latent severity of his new injuries, Mister Strife is well and truly done with his fighting days."

"And Tifa?" Aeris continued without missing a beat. "It is incumbent upon _you _to ensure he _stays _that way, alright?"

"Aeris…I…"

"Do I make myself clear?"

"But Aeris, I…"

"_DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!_"

"_Yes!_" Tifa cried, alarmed as the rest of AVALANCHE was by the irritation and buried rage that radiated in waves off of the girl they all thought they had known.

"Good. I'll hold you to that," she finished with a huff, straightening out her red leather jacket and stalking over purposefully to the window. "It will be quite unfortunate if I have to remind you of your responsibility. I never wanted to steal your precious Cloud from you, but so help me, I refuse to sacrifice my happiness for the sake of yours! You, who beat around the bush for _half a decade_ out of fear of each other, allowing him to sink deeper and deeper into a past that is sordid beyond his comprehension. If you screw up again, I am _done _with helping you from beyond the grave!"

"'Sacrifice your happiness'? Aeris, what…I don't…" struggled Tifa.

"No, _of course_ you don't," she countered. "I wouldn't _expect _you to."

"Aeris…"

"_IT DOESN'T MATTER!_" shouted Aeris, pivoting around so quickly that her braided ponytail whipped around her slender, but no longer waifish form. "I…damn it… I am so _sick _and _tired _of living your goddamn lives _for _you! Planet knows I've tried to be patient, but you guys are _really _starting to make me _sick!_"

"Beware the nice ones," muttered Zack.

"Zack Fair, I heard that!" she yelled, freezing him in place with a deer-in-headlights expression as his skin reddened. "I swear, if you know what's good for you, you'll hold your tongue! I am _so _not in the mood to deal with your joking around right now…"

"Miss Gainsborough," interceded Kain. "They obviously do not know what's going on. Perhaps you could explain it to them?"

Aeris seemed to consider his words for a few moments before giving a frustrated huff (edged with no small hint of resigned anxiety, he noticed) and turning back to the window. "Later," she said. "I don't have time to explain everything right now, but all you need to know at the present moment is that currently, the man I love is facing off against his greatest challenge–an entity of nearly unrivalled power who was willing to do me a favor–and all I can do is sit here and watch. But may the Planet have mercy on him if he lied, because _I _certainly won't…"

_Ahh…so now the pieces all fit together, _thought Kain. _Oh, Aeris. You _really _needn't worry, but I understand your pain nonetheless. Let's hope that those you called 'friend' in days and battles past will be able to, as well…_

* * *

_Gedan-no-kamae_ against a two-handed _Hirazuki_ stance. The combatants charged each other with _shinsoku, _and at a speed faster than the human eye's ability to see, Octaslash met _Kuzury__ū__sen_, at the end of which both opponents emerged, unharmed.

"_Shinsoku_," breathed Sephiroth. "I have heard of it, but I thought myself the only one to be able to achieve it…"

"Technically speaking, you _are,_" replied Olliver. "I'm here only temporarily, but while I'm here, I came to do a favor for an…acquaintance of mine."

"And this is why you went to such lengths in order to resurrect me," surmised Sephiroth.

"I did that to help Aeris solve her problem," said the vampire, the name immediately demanding the surprised Silver General's full attention. "And I intend to keep to that."

"What do you mean, 'Aeris's problem'?" asked the former SOLDIER suspiciously.

"In short? She's worried," he replied honestly. "Worried about _you, _more specifically. She knows that you are…troubled by your past, but because you seek to protect her from your darkness, she cannot help. It results in her feeling powerless, which thus leads to frustration and despair, feelings of inadequacy, _et cetera, et cetera. _Thus, I come as a sort of…moderator."

"'Moderator'?" balked Sephiroth.

"Since you feel as if you cannot share your darkness with your well-meaning paramour, and since she is perceptive enough to be able to see through the act you put on for her benefit, which troubles her to no end, I offer you a deal," spoke the Dragon of Saint George. "It is your anger that is unresolved and your hatred that is unending that tortures you so."

"My hatred?" scoffed the silver-haired swordsman. "It has been too long since I have seen what destruction and horror my unfounded hatred may bring about once unleashed. I let go of it long ago."

"No, you have not," countered the black swordsman. "You have long since given up your hatred for mankind, ever since darling Jenova forced you to kill the flower girl."

"_How do you know of that?!_" shouted Sephiroth.

"But there is one hatred which you have refused to eschew, Sephiroth," continued Olliver, as if Sephiroth had never objected. "That is, the hatred you save for yourself. It is the greatest hatred you have ever held, even in willing thrall to the ambitions of Jenova. It will, however, consume you if not dealt with, and from that consumption not even _death_ will offer respite or sanctuary." The vampire turned on his heel, regarding the One-Winged Angel with a gravely serious expression, his eyes blazing with intensity. "I have brought you here before me now, that I might at last set you free. Come, Sephiroth. Allow me to embody that which is intrinsically yours–your unbreakable will, your feelings for Aeris, your _genius…_–and cast against it your hatred of all of what you are. Come then, One-Winged Angel! Break your chains and fly, at last, liberated and born anew!"

"Hmph," scoffed Sephiroth. "If it is a fight you want, I'm happy to oblige."

"No, Sephiroth. Not a fight," said Olliver, shaking his head. "I think we're _both _tired of fighting meaningless battles. No, this is a duel. _O__ur _duel. And if you try to deny that, I can guarantee you, not even the great Silver General of SOLDIER will be able to defeat me."

"…I accept."

* * *

Vincent and Lucrecia sat on opposite sides of their dark room, their backs to each other. Though the air hung heavy with the tension of things left unsaid that should not have been, neither knew how to broach the subject with each other. It was to this sordid scene that Aeris Gainsborough entered when she slipped into that chamber, and it filled her with frustration–interestingly enough, not stemming from irritation or aggravation, but from profound sorrow. It reminded her, gut-wrenchingly enough, of the time shortly after Sephiroth, having sacrificed himself in order to give her enough time to augment the summoning of Holy using the energies of the Lifestream, thus stopping Meteor, foiling Jenova, and, in the end, accomplishing what the ancient Cetra failed to do: defeat her, once and for all. They had met in a fantastical environment, where they meant to discuss his and her final moments respectively, but because neither of them knew how to begin, time after time for several weeks, all they accomplished was the mutual occupation of a conjured room in the Icicle Inn.

And so she resolved to do for her lover's parents what her own mother–her birth mother, the Cetra woman, Ifalna–had done for the two of them in the Lifestream.

Break the ice.

"Lucrecia Crescent. Vincent Valentine," she began, startling and drawing the attention of both adults in the room. "I…my name's Aeris Gainsborough."

"We know," replied Vincent, his brow furrowed in confusion.

Aeris flushed with embarrassment. "Well I know _you _know, Vincent! I _did _travel with you…for a while, at least. It was more for Lucrecia's benefit, anyways…" She looked away, thinking to herself, _Damn! This is _not _how this was supposed to work…_ She was unable, though, to hide her shock when the infamously shy Lucrecia Crescent spoke.

"I see. You must be the girl Sephiroth cares for so much," said she. "I'm…_pleased_…to see that you were able to give him that which I did not have the…the _strength _to do. There's something familiar about you, though… You're...Professor Gast's daughter, too, aren't you?"

"Yes," Aeris responded, suddenly demure. "Yes, Professor Gast was my father. He was hunted down and murdered on the orders of Professor Hojo. My mother and I were taken to the lab, but we escaped, and though my birth mother was gunned down in Midgar, my adopted mother, Elmyra, took me in and sheltered me from the Turks Hojo sent to recapture me. Well, it was really a combination of her and my friend, Tseng, who did it, but…yes."

"I…understand," responded Lucrecia, her body trembling ever-so-slightly. "When we met, Hojo was different than the man he became… No, that's not true. He was just better at hiding it. Monsters are born, not made, and trust me when I say that Hojo…was an absolute _monster…_" Her trembling became more pronounced, and her voice wavered.

"Look, the two of you," said Aeris. "Both of you have…well, _fucked up_ (for lack of a better term) in the past, but right now, Seph…_Sephiroth _needs the mother and father that weren't there for him when he was being tortured by Hojo. He needs _you_ two. And so I need you to say what needs to be said between yourselves in the next few hours, for _his _sake. I have faith in both of you to do this. _Please _don't prove me wrong." She turned and walked carefully out of the room, intending to leave the estranged couple to their long-awaited reunion.

"_WAIT!_" cried Lucrecia, stopping Aeris at the threshold. "Why…why are you doing this? Helping us, I mean?"

Aeris sighed. "Do you _really _have to ask?" She chuckled. "It's because…well, because Sephiroth has made me very happy, and I love him. With him, I'm…no longer alone. So when he's in pain, I will do anything and everything in my power to keep him from being consumed by despair. That's all." She walked out, letting the door close behind her. _Not to mention, Vincent was a friend. But really, that's neither here nor there, _she thought. Laughing softly to herself, she tossed her braid over her shoulder and walked off.

* * *

The pair faced each other, blades drawn and in mirroring two-handed _Hirazuki _stances. Then they paused, each just beyond the edge of the other's reach, considering and waiting to see which of them would end up making the first move. The decision would be made in an instant, they knew, but they _also_ knew the stakes, for with two swordsmen of their caliber, the edge of their reach was a barrier, and they were all too conscious of it. Focused eyes cool as the Ninth Level of Hell met an irritated, slightly unsettled gaze that nonetheless maintained a mask of calm convincing enough to fool most people.

It was settled.

Each charged simultaneously, silent save for the sound of the displacement of air and the tearing of the rooftop. At the end, both of the thrusts had cancelled each other out, thus failing to connect, but the combatants whirled around in unison, the wide slashes that they turned the failed thrusts into connecting with each other. The blades ground against each other, the metallic shriek filling the air, and Olliver disengaged first. Believing to see an opening, Sephiroth rushed to hit his opponent with a swift _morote-zuki_, but as the vampire continued the arc of his _ōdachi _into a _waki-gamae _stance, he aborted and leapt back high into the air, Masamune held down in a waiting parry, just in time to avoid the completion of his arcing one-handed upward cut that sparked as it sliced through the roof, supported by the other hand along Kangetsu's spine. At the end of that arc, Olliver flowed back into another _Hirazuki _stance, this time with his hand along the crest of the blade with the _kissaki _pointed upwards, then executing a vertical _Yamitsuki _(an _Amatsu__ken_) and following Sephiroth. It pierced through his midsection and out of his back, and the black swordsman flowed into another wide slash that threw the Silver General into the building below. Olliver floated down to the other side of that surface gracefully as his opponent struggled to regain his footing, the deep stab wound healing already.

"I told you, Sephiroth, you cannot win against me unless you fully commit to this battle," chided the Vampire King. "Next time, I won't go easy on you."

The former SOLDIER smirked, pointing Masamune at his opponent. "All right, then. You want me? You got me." With that, Sephiroth's posture changed, mimicking a willow (or someone about to faint) and dashing forth with a speed far exceeding that which he had showed himself capable of previously. He lunged with another _tsuki_, this time a _katate-zuki_, but the other simply sidestepped and moved past the strike, spinning in a full circle and using the momentum to smash the blunt end of his blade into the back of Sephiroth's neck, sending him flying to crash down into the side of a neighboring building. He tumbled through it, wrecking the rows of orderly cubicles within before finally regaining his footing and stopping his motion through the generation of friction, then dashing forth, propelling himself on with powerful, explosive bounds off of each step, meeting Olliver's downward strike that his _j__ō__dan-no-kamae_ stance telegraphed with Masamune held sideways almost at the level of his eyes, moving past him and leaping back into the air, following with a combination of four diagonal slashes that sent waves of vibrations through the intervening space, wreaking further devastation and kicking up a thick cloud of dust. A moment later, though, the vampire burst through that smokescreen in _gedan-no-kamae_, repeating the upward cut from before; Sephiroth parried, and the black swordsman used the momentum from the impact to propel himself into a flip to multiply his own speed, then executing a downward strike towards the head whilst still wheeling in mid-air. Masamune parried, but the transfer of inertia and force propelled its wielder downwards towards the street below, where he landed with such a bone-shattering impact that a sizeable crater was generated in the tar. He barely had enough time to shake off his daze and roll out of the way before his opponent plunged down to the ground, brandishing Kangetsu in a way that reminded him in a flash of how his body, under Jenova's direct control, leapt down and drove Masamune into Aeris's back; Kangetsu cut deep into the ground, and Sephiroth regained his footing in the minute delay that elapsed in which Olliver pulled his sword from its earthen sheath. Imagining the possession of a sheath, Sephiroth attempted a _batt__ō__jutsu _strike, which Kangetsu snapped to block and then disengage from, but the silver swordsman used that momentum to spin around and deliver another strike that was faster and stronger by an order of magnitude, which this time connected, slashing the vampire from his right hip up to his left shoulder, lifting him up off his feet and into the air, where his arc ended several blocks down the street. After a moment, however, using his sword, Kangetsu, the vampire stood once more, the gash across his chest weeping viscous crimson fluid that the Silver General could only assume to be his opponent's blood.

"Impressive, Sephiroth. _Very _impressive," said Olliver. "You grow closer and closer to expressing your true darkness. But it becomes clear to me that your legendary self-control will not be abandoned in the face of any _normal _opponent…so, in order to speed this along, I'll skip my first two combat forms. Releasing Binding Coil Four!" As he said this, a black substance tinged with accents of scarlet began to ooze from the bloody gash across his midsection, covering his body as he staggered to the ground and then to all fours, and thus to a blob of nebulous black with features that could not be discerned, though from it exuded sinister laughter. Then a skeletal hand burst from the mass, the black ooze rushing forth to cover it and then to be absorbed, leaving behind a massive hand with fingers that were claws and grey skin stretched taut over lengths of corded, bulging muscle. After that, another hand burst forth, and the same happened to it, followed by a pair of skeletal wings, themselves covered with the substance that left behind a leathery membrane that filled out their bat-like structure, the arms of those wings also corded with muscle, but with skin black as pitch, in contrast with the grey skin that covered the rest of him.

When he rose, the elegant, beautiful, deadly swordsman was gone, and in his place was a massive, muscled, grey-skinned, clawed, horned beast with the same eyes ringed by yellow sclera, longer fangs, a gaunt, skull-like face, and a pair of great demonic bat-like wings, the membrane black as pitch on the exterior while the interior maintained a vital red color. His waist and below was covered in a sable lower-robe lined with red, secured with the same belt that he had had on before; from his back came a long, sinuous, spaded tail, and his feet were now bare, their digits turned to talons. This creature, its chest covered in black markings in the shape of hundreds of runes and dozens of intricate Hermetic arrays, gave a mighty, bestial roar, plucked Kangetsu up from the ground into which it had been thrust, wheeling it through the air and setting into another two-handed _Hirazuki_. "Now, Sephiroth, witness the True Form of the Vampire King!"

* * *

"He has assumed his True Form," remarked Kain, his arms folded across his chest as he looked down at the battle below, Aeris at his side. "That is curious."

"Why?" she asked, concerned and slightly suspicious.

"Because he seems to have skipped over Dæmon Form and Dæmon II, or Greater Dæmon," replied the dragoon. "The True Form is alternatively known as Dæmon III, and, as the first of the Four Archdæmon Forms, Archdæmon I. The fact that he's initiating Archdæmon I _this_ early in the fight bodes well for his regard of your paramour. However, should this be the extent of his power, regardless of his skill, it does not bode well for his continued good health."

"I can assure you, it isn't," replied the Cetra with conviction. "Not by a long shot. Sephiroth…" She exhaled. "Yes, Sephiroth will be fine. Thank you. I needed that."

The dragon knight responded with a curt nod. "Happy to oblige."

* * *

Sephiroth lifted himself out of the rubble into which he had been blasted by the incredible power of his opponent's slash, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his glove and spitting out a dislodged tooth with the knowledge that a replacement would soon grow in its place. He tightened his grip on Masamune at the sight of the Vampire King, and did not drop his guard even when the demonic creature into which Olliver had transformed began to speak.

"_Kagemusha-ry__ū__: Akumano Mugen Zan. _Originally a technique long thought lost, taught to me by its final practitioner, augmented with my _particular_ caliber of _shinsoku, _perfected to my satisfaction and incorporated into my personal school of _kenjutsu_–which is, as I have said, _Kagemusha-ry__ū__,_" said the monstrous-looking being. "Can you see now, Sephiroth? Are you beginning to understand? You must let your hatred channel through you, truly, in order to have any chance of defeating me. If you do not, I will end it quickly and permanently; I have grown weary of fighting meaninglessly."

Sephiroth responded with the voice he knew better than his own: that of Masamune.

Assuming _gedan-no-kamae, _he closed his eyes and allowed his veteran analytical mind and eidetic memory to play back to him the memory of experiencing _Kuzury__ū__sen, _picking it apart and reverse-engineering it, before snapping his eyes open, his gaze blazing with his seldom-needed _ki, _and, with a mighty _kiai_, he replicated it.

The attack hit all nine targets as it should have, but shortly thereafter, he found himself on the receiving end of a point-blank-range _Yamitsuki _(an _Akumanotant_ō) that punctured his midsection, intentionally missing his vitals, but then morphing into another slash to repel him.

"Good. You're learning. That attack was _perfect; _well beyond my expectations," remarked Olliver. "Your _ki_–your fighting spirit–was flowing through you; I could sense it radiating in _waves._ Such is the only way you may defeat me, Sephiroth. Now, you have _intrigued _me as to the _true _limits of your power. Come, show me _more._"

Bursting out of the rubble, Sephiroth leapt high into the air, coming back down with Masamune readied in a position reminiscent–no, nearly _identical_ to–the _Hirazuki_ stance, his right hand steadying the blade, another _kiai _upon his lips. The Vampire King beat his wings powerfully, avoiding the attack the moment before it slammed down into the space he had occupied a moment earlier, tearing up even more of the road. The Silver General, his _ki _flowing and his normally tight grip on his anger quickly loosening, followed his opponent into the air, their swords clashing with an explosive shower of white sparks. He disengaged by repelling himself off of his foe's blade, flipping through the air and arcing back down with an attempted _katate-zuki_; this, too, was deflected, but he used this to send him spinning, his resultant slash (for which he added his right hand to his grip) clashing once more into Kangetsu. With this as an anchor, he swung his legs up into a two-booted driving kick to his foe's midsection, crouching and pushing backwards, flipping in mid-air, landing in a crouch on the side of another building, sword in another two-handed _Hirazuki_ grip, and flying from that perch across the way to where the Vampire King still flew in the air, then crashing into the opposite building with a shoulder-roll and a short kneeling power-slide. The delayed reaction came to fruition a moment later, when the Octaslash made its effect felt, followed by the monstrous form of his opponent crashing into the same building, coming out of his only slightly less controlled roll with a downward slash at his head. Masamune blocked, but the power of the impact caused the floor to buckle and shatter, sending Sephiroth falling to the lower level, his opponent on top of him. Again and again their combined weight and force of impact caused them to fall through floors, and it was only after eight or nine had been collapsed that the silver swordsman managed to crouch up into a semi-fœtal position and kick the much-heavier vampire away from him, so that on the ninth or tenth floor they reached, they both landed on opposite ends of the chamber in kneeling power-slides.

Simultaneously their gazes snapped up to meet each other, a _kiai _being almost torn from both of their throats as they charged each other and exchanged a wild flurry of blows, all so fluid and indistinct that all the Silver General was capable of at that time was following the dance to the inaudible battle-music that still coordinated the steps their inhumanly-fast reflexes and finely-honed instincts dictated they take.

It was an arcing upward slash, which sparked on contact with the steel girders below that supported the structure, that broke the rhythm, disrupting the elegant-but-uncontrolled dance of death. The Vampire King leapt back, landing well outside of Masamune's reach and Kangetsu's, and both fell to their knees, breathing heavily. He was the first to stagger elegantly to his feet, followed in short order by Sephiroth.

"Excellent. You grow closer and closer to becoming unleashed, and with it, your speed, strength, dexterity and accuracy increase," said he. "But I think it's time to take this to the next level, don't you agree? Releasing Binding Coil Five!" With that, he drove his sword into the ground, tightly grasping its_ kashira _with both hands and closing his eyes in concentration. From the markings on his grey skin rose smoke-like tendrils of shadow that whispered, it seemed, directly into Sephiroth's mind. Thicker and more viscous they grew, until finally, several dozen runes and the arrays they belonged to–which, in truth, linked to form a much more intricate one–glowed scarlet with a low-pitched, keening wail. The corner of his opponent's mouth quirked open, baring teeth in a grimace and a grunt as the scarlet glow faded, secreting the black liquid once again to cover his body. The grunts increased in frequency and volume, until, as the last of him disappeared beneath it, they chained into a demonic roar. He threw his arms out wide, the liquid seemingly evaporating nigh-instantaneously, and from his back exploded a second pair of wings, identical to the first. The rest of his body was now plated in a sectioned, black, bone-like carapace, and his eyes glowed scarlet without sclera or pupil, his hair growing to halfway down his back and flowing with the explosive force of the transformation. Sephiroth gripped Masamune ever-tighter, his _ki _flowing through him nearly unabated, his warrior's instincts instilling him with a sense of anticipation and grim excitement. He knew that from here, the battle could–and would–only get more difficult.

* * *

"_GET DOWN!_" cried Kain, grabbing Aeris and throwing her behind him, where his arms wrapped around her, securing her to his armored chest. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a black-and-scarlet ball of energy pulsating, as if it was a force-field containing her lover and his opponent, before it exploded outwards into a devastating, at first soundless, shockwave. The dragoon bore the brunt of the conflagration on his back, but she could still feel the weightlessness as they were thrown into the sky, seeming to fly gracefully. Then the shockwave dissipated, and with a deafening, concussive wave of sound, the air that the shockwave had forced out rushed back to fill the vacuum, causing nigh-cataclysmic levels of destruction as windows, walls, floors, even _buildings_ were sundered in its wake, leaving the opponents standing in a three-story-deep _crater. _Of course, the destruction was limited to nine square city blocks, but still, the result had Aeris gaping in open-mouthed surprise when she and Kain stood to take it in. There the pair stood, and here she and the dragoon stood, on the rooftop of a building a safe distance away from the one they had been standing on previously.

"What _was _that?" called Genesis as he approached from behind, his wing furling as he alighted upon the rooftop, followed in short order by Angeal and Zack.

"It felt like a localized seismic event," commented Hewley.

"He's assumed his Augmented True Form–Archdæmon II," replied the dragon knight, clearly a bit shaken. "The collateral of this battle will truly be…_spectacular…_"

* * *

The vampire recovered first, grasping Kangetsu and dragging it along the ground, then out and into an upwards strike, which Sephiroth, being in no position to parry effectively, launched himself back away from, skirting its reach and effectively evading it. This he repeated for three of the following slashes with which his opponent followed, and on the fourth, he front-flipped through the air, twisting mid-way and landing in a crouch, only to explode upwards with a swift slash that met Kangetsu, held in an extended _j__ō__dan-no-kamae _stance to guard Olliver's back. The shock of the impact sent the silver swordsman reeling. The vampire then pivoted, bringing his _ōdachi _down in a descending diagonal strike at Sephiroth's pauldron-clad shoulder that clashed with the parry he brought to bear with Masamune. After a moment of gathering and focusing his strength, he used his right hand, which supported the _ōdachi _along its spine, to force Kangetsu to disengage, and in the interval in which the vampire reeled, he brought Masamune down into a succession of six crisscrossing, nearly-simultaneous slashes, each of which was minorly effective at best against his opponent's thick, bone-like chitin carapace, much to his chagrin. Even more irritating was the fact that Olliver brought the sword in its arc to bear in short order, forcing Sephiroth to sidestep so quickly he left an after-image, and in so doing, abandon the endeavor. When his opponent changed directions, wheeling around in a wide slash, he parried it, plumes of thin Mako-green smoke rising off of him and thickening as his frustration, in tandem with his fighting spirit, mounted. He disengaged, shoving the other _ōdachi _away, but almost screaming his vitriol when his opponent turned that into an arcing overhead slash that forced him to once again parry. Fueled by his rage, over which his control had become at best threadbare, he put his weight behind Masamune and _drove _his opponent back, then stopping and letting the inertia carry the vampire into a nearby building, destroying the last of the foundation and bringing it down upon him. Pressing the attack, Sephiroth retook the two-handed _Hirazuki _stance, gave another _kiai,_ and, using _shinsoku,_ charged, punctuating with a slash that had behind it the combined force of his momentum, his strength and his _ki, _thus replicating the strike he had heard his opponent refer to as the _Akumano__ Mugen Zan…_which, once again, failed to connect, instead clashing against the vampire's parry. Kangetsu forced Masamune wide and continued its arc, coming up and around and striking down towards Sephiroth's pauldron-clad left shoulder, forcing him to duck and roll under the blade's path and out of the way of its reaping edge.

"_Stellar_ performance, Sephiroth," said Olliver. "You're almost there!"

"I have had just about enough of your _mockery!_" he seethed. "This. Ends. _Now!_"

"Hmph. You really think so?" replied his opponent. The demon slashed, and Sephiroth parried, but as Kangetsu forced Masamune further along, he was entirely unprepared for when the vampire's torque sent his long, spaded, armor-plated tail smashing into his side and throwing the Silver General careening off-balance, so that when that momentum brought the other sword full-circle, slicing deep into his midsection once, twice, sending him staggering to his knees, right hand clasping at the x-shaped wounds in his chest as he began to cough up blood. With the sight of each puddle of his blood on the ground, his control slipped further and further, and as his _ki _flowed stronger and faster through him, spurred on by his deeply-buried anger, his wounds healed at an increasing rate; in mere minutes, his wounds healed and his breathing slowed, his fighting spirit blazing and radiating off of him in visible waves of luminescent green.

He stepped up, first on one leg, then the other, grasping Masamune and coming to his feet, taking two strides forward, pivoting his left leg behind his right and dropping down into yet another two-handed _Hirazuki _stance, then charging towards his foe. The Vampire King beat his two pairs of massive, bat-like wings firmly, propelling himself into the air as the attack connected to where he had been a moment before, but Sephiroth, seeming to predict this, readied an _Amatsuken _and executed, using his momentum, a powerful jump and _shinsoku_ to follow his opponent into the air. It connected, Masamune punching through the thick carapace, but the demon did not so much as grimace; in its place was a wide, feral, _smug _grin. It was infuriating, incendiary…

With an almost-audible _snap, _Sephiroth's hold on the anger, the violent rage that had been his constant companion his whole life–the bait that had turned him into Jenova's cat's-paw–shattered into a hundred thousand pieces.

"Stop…acting like…you're…fucking…_winning!_" shouted Sephiroth, now thoroughly incensed, as his black-feathered wing exploded from his right shoulder and the flow of Mako through his bloodstream made his head begin to pound. "It's really starting to _piss me off!_"

"Hmph. Releasing Binding Coil Six!" Without further warning, he was abruptly thrown back through several buildings with such concussive force that the buildings buckled and began to sway, then disintegrating entirely in the wake of a gargantuan sphere of dark energy that blasted through the city with the Vampire King at its center. It took a while, but at last Sephiroth was able to break free of the dissipating shockwave and maintain a steady altitude, hovering in the air, seething with anger that was now well beyond his ability to leash it again. Even so, he was utterly unprepared for what emerged from that destructive chrysalis.

* * *

"Um…_wow…_" remarked Zack, stunned beyond his capacity for coherent thought, speech or any other modes of communication. "That was…_something…_"

"I told you, didn't I?" replied Kain. "That the collateral would be rather…_spectacular?_"

"Yes, you did," acknowledged Angeal. "But you telling us that, and us witnessing it… They're two different things entirely."

"I cannot dispute that," allowed the dragoon. "Seeing him in action is somewhat of a challenge to one's martial sensibilities. I, for one, thought to myself that one as powerful as he should not exist when I first saw him wield that sword of his."

"Thankfully, though, your quick thinking got us outside of the blast radius in time," said Hewley. "You have our gratitude for that."

"Hmph," chuckled the dragon knight. "Don't mention it. I've been around the block, so to speak, enough times to be able to recognize the signs."

"Will…will Seph…will he…" struggled Aeris.

"Don't worry, Miss Gainsborough. Sephiroth will be fine," assured Kain.

She calmed herself, nodding definitively and resolutely.

"Well, I can say one thing's for sure: this guy sure pulls out all the stops when he promises a fireworks show. This has got to be by far the most fun I've had since before Wutai," said Genesis, proffering a distinctive-looking white paper bag, opened, with smoke rising off of its contents. "Popcorn, anyone?"

* * *

When the dust cleared, revealing a nine-story-deep crater a kilometer in diameter, there hovered in the center a figure. Not much could be seen about the figure in terms of detail, but Sephiroth could pick out a single pair of immense bat-like wings, black on the exterior, scarlet on the interior, with a span half a kilometer across, folded as they were, keeping it in mid-air. Beyond that, he could recognize a similar pair covering the figure's face and upper body, their tips pointing upwards, and another pair covering the figure's waist down to its feet, their tips pointing towards the ground. In a moment, though, that all changed.

"Archdæmon III: The Penultimate Form. In the beginning, Lucifer–the celestial being that came to be known as Satan, among many other names–was called 'the Seraph of the Dawn.' Thus do I appear before you now," said Olliver's voice, emanating from the figure. "Behold!" The pairs of wings that covered his upper and lower body snapped outwards, together with the pair that kept him airborne, revealing their full kilometer-wide span. Behind the cover of those wings, his skin had reverted to its marmoreal pallor, his body regained its slender, lean build, his long, spaded tail disappeared, his hands once more humanoid, fingers long, elegant and tapered, fingernails long and sharp, and his face had returned to a nearly exact replica of its normative state, the only deviation being that its lack of magnetism stemmed this time from grace so ethereal as to be austere and intimidating. His lower robe had acquired a scalloped hem, and his raven-black hair had grown to hang to his waist, Kangetsu held in his left hand and his scarlet gaze, devoid of a pupil but not sclera, fixed on Sephiroth in an expression of a challenge. "You stand in the presence of Saint George's Nemesis, for I am the Great Red Dragon, and I am your opponent! Come, Sephiroth! Our duel is not yet concluded."

Sephiroth shot through the air like a bullet out of a gun, and the metallic clash as Masamune met Kangetsu generated a sonic boom that shattered even more of the windows in the buildings surrounding the blast zone–mostly the ruined structures left behind from Meteorfall, but some of the rebuilt outliers as well–though this went unnoticed, for all that his anger could focus on was the…_struggle _in which he was engaged, and it did so monomaniacally. He whirled around, the screeching from the two metal blades going unnoticed, as did the sparks generated, bringing his sword slashing across his opponent's midsection. This, too, was parried, for all the vampire needed to do was to rotate his weapon in a clockwise semi-circle, but that fact didn't register in his mind; all he could perceive in his enraged state was that his foe had once again blocked his attack, and his already out-of-control anger skyrocketed. _This smug bastard thinks he can _help _me?! Don't make me laugh! _he thought. _I, who put down Wutai! I, who was universally feared amongst and above soldiers everywhere! I, who…who brought down the sky! I'm a murderer! I've been damned since the moment of my birth! What chance do you think you have?! I, who…who killed Aeris…stealing the life from her breast… _He dabbed at the sudden moisture on his cheek, and when his hand came away wet with tears, he stared at them in outraged, astonished disgust. "_I ALREADY KNOW I'M A MONSTER! YOU DON'T NEED TO REMIND ME OF THAT! I'M AN ABOMINATION! A PERVERSION! BEYOND SAVING! DON'T YOU DARE FEEL SORRY FOR ME! I DON'T WANT YOUR PITY!_" He struck down with an overhead cleave, and Kangetsu blocked it as before, but this time, its wielder's gaze pierced into his own.

"I'm not. I have none to give," said Olliver, his voice holding no trace of mockery and an almost pulverizing gravity. "_Kagemusha-ry__ū__: Jigen-T__ō__!_"

And Masamune _shattered._

"_SEPHIROTH!_"

"You are ready. It is time to finish this. _Kagemusha-ry__ū__: Kage-T__ō__ Yamikiri!_"

* * *

"_SEPHIROTH!_" Aeris cried out involuntarily (though, in truth, she would have made no effort to stop herself anyways) as she watched Masamune, her lover's most prized and precious possession, laden with memories and sentiment, both good and ill, but all integral, explode into smoking shards of metal as the vampire executed the _Jigen-T__ō__. _Already she had been hard-pressed to manage her distress as Sephiroth, enraged, shouted those things to his opponent (for though she had been aware of the darkness he hid from her, as well as having several indications as to the extent, to know such a thing exists and to hear her paramour speak it aloud, when all control had been stripped from him, were two different things entirely), but the occurrence of the event that brought the vampire such satisfaction nearly sundered her hold on herself entirely. Kain, noticing this, held her back when, as Olliver pressed the attack, clearly moving to finally bring an end to the conflict, she burst forth, also involuntarily, tears running freely down her face, and screamed, "_SEPHIROTH!_"

"Stop struggling!" hissed Kain. "I told you he would be fine, did I not?! Do you wish your paramour aided or not?!"

The fight went out of her then, and like a marionette whose strings had been cut, she went limp, though she still remained standing. Zack walked up and placed his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to soothe, but his words went unheard, as her anguish superseded her ability to comprehend human speech. Comforts and platitudes went entirely unheeded, first from Zack, then Angeal, then Genesis, all wasted gestures, until Kain himself stepped in front of her, kneeling down and removing his dragon's-head helm for the first time since she had met him, revealing the upper half of his face and letting free his long blond hair, his icy blue eyes meeting her bright green ones, fogged with tears unshed, but still conscious enough of her surroundings to notice this and react with muted surprise.

"I know your pain, girl, and I understand," said Kain, his tone serious and grave, his gaze intent and focused. "But right now, Sephiroth has need of you. You have been willing to go this far to give him the aid he needs, so you cannot afford to resign at this point. Be _strong, _Aeris. For both your sakes."

"Okay," she sighed. "I will. And…thank you, Kain."

"I know something of what it is to love, make no mistake," he replied. "Sometimes, in order to truly help those close to us, those who are _important _to us, we must deafen ourselves to their suffering for a time while we do what needs be done. The pain of it never truly lessens, but the alternative will invariably be worse. Thank me not, Aeris; I would be remiss were I to allow a pair of lovers to embark upon the path that will lead them to make the same mistakes I have made in the past."

Nodding at this, she sniffed, wiped the tears from her face, stood tall and, steeling herself, watched with newfound resolve and waited for the advent of the end of their struggle, though she was unable to stop herself from flinching as the sable-scarlet x-shaped after-image of the _Kage-T__ō__ Yamikiri _was followed, after a short delay, by a massive, blooming explosion of white-hot flame, with the stricken Sephiroth, still reeling in midair, caught in its center.

"What the Hell is _that?_" gaped Genesis, his mouth hanging open, the bag of popcorn falling from his grasp to spill out puffy white kernels upon the rooftop. After a moment, Kain stood, dragon's-head helm nestled in the crook of his arm, long blond hair flowing in the wind, and looked out at the conflagration before, with a grave, serious, vaguely reverent tone of voice, he replied.

"The second phase of the _Kage-T__ō__ Yamikiri_: the Demonic Megiddo."

* * *

He was floating, submerged in a seemingly-boundless sea of blood. From this ocean rose an unearthly din, millions if not billions of anguished shrieks combining into a single iterant note of existential despair and endless suffering, faces half-forming out of the viscous liquid and then disappearing, torn apart and dragged under by dozens if not hundreds of semi-corporeal, spectral hands at a time. It was like a horrible mockery of the Lifestream, and from it was the same kind of eldritch sensation, though he could tell, somehow, that it was muted for his benefit.

Within an eternity that only lasted a few minutes, however, Sephiroth found himself on the featureless white floor of an equally-featureless, almost totally indistinct chamber. He stood upon noticing, crusading valiantly but ultimately in vain to get a handhold on his emotions and get them once again leashed; he might have been better served trying to lasso a hurricane, for the impossibility of the task–let alone for all the good it did him. Consigning himself to the notion that the one who challenged him in _this _place would force him to bring the full wrath of the Silver General down upon them, he sighed under his breath, thankful that his rage had at least dimmed, and with it, his fighting spirit, but the anguish and self-hatred that swirled rapidly, chaotically through his mind, he knew, would consume him utterly were he to abandon this last vestige of sanity he now occupied, a familiar place, the ova of the destruction of the Calamity, the alien virus named Jenova.

"Do you like it?" asked a disembodied, echoing voice–that of the Vampire King, Olliver. "Do you even know where you are?"

"No."

"You are within _me_, Sephiroth. The inside of a vampire is almost never a pleasant sight."

"What were all of those…voices, faces, limbs…?"

"The souls of the people I have fed upon over the course of the aeons. Vampires must feed from living hosts, for in so doing, we drain their vitality to sustain our own, as well as their souls to augment our power," explained he. "However, when vampires of the First Generation feed, the increase is, unfortunately, miniscule _per capita,_ and so there is a different way in which we increase our power: that is, to defeat and slay our fellows in mortal combat, thus absorbing their knowledge, memories and dæmonic energies, assimilating them into ourselves. As the ages come and pass, inevitably an Elder such as myself will accrue quite the repository of souls, both human and sanguine; I, however, have lived for so long and fed on so many that within myself, I am able to manifest a world such as this one. Observe, if you would." With that, the indistinct white vanished, and in its place there was a grand hall, floors of black marble, walls of sable granite, with ranks of candelabra, braziers and torches outlining and illuminating a rich red carpet, embroidered with gold threads, that led to a great throne, shrouded in shadow. Upon this throne, in the full version of the robes he had worn in their battle, and a voluminous, high-collared, red-lined black cloak with a scalloped hem that he had not, there sat the Vampire King, his scarlet eyes glowing as two pinpoints of flame. "This is where I ruled my race, and as Lord of the Elder Council, the Godkiller, I, who smote the Twelve Olympians upon the side of the mountain-top in times of antiquity, did reign." The landscape changed once again, morphing into a detailed replica of the Planet's Core, and so did Olliver revert to his Penultimate Form, wings and all. "It was with my blood that Clarent, the implement created to focus the power of the Black Materia, which was the main component in the ritual of your resurrection, was forged, quenched and tempered. Thus, as your body sustained nigh-mortal injury at the hands of the Demonic Megiddo and your consciousness floated at the edge between life and death, you were brought here, that we might converse."

"You said that I was…ready…" began Sephiroth, his insecurity uncharacteristically obvious from his demeanor and posture.

"And you wish to know what I meant by that, _n'est-ce pas_?" asked Olliver.

Sephiroth nodded mutely.

"I meant that you had at last come to terms with something that has been a part of your existence for a very, very long time: the fact that the person you hate most in the world is, and always has been, yourself," explained the vampire. "Oh, certainly, when you found Jenova, she took that hatred and anger and, not quite understanding their significance, did her very best to externalize it, make it easier for you to hate humans, hate humanity, hate the world, but deep down, you were always the target of the harshest of torments that you could bring to pass. And now that you have come to terms with the fact of its being, it becomes a much easier matter for me to help you, for your sake and that of your paramour." He smiled, and for once, despite the fangs and the sharp teeth, it was genuine, and its warmth made Sephiroth feel more at ease. "Shall we begin, then?"

"By all means."

* * *

_Sephiroth had been a good son to the creature he called 'Mother,' Jenova, the Calamity from the Skies. And why shouldn't he have been? Genesis had betrayed him, Angeal had abandoned him, he had discovered the truth of his origins and been mocked by one of the only two people he had ever truly called 'friend'–save Zack, of course, but he could not have understood–and through all of these lies and deception and betrayal, who had been there for him? Who had accepted him, given him comfort and what he thought had to be love, rescuing him from the nadir of his despair? _

_That's right. _Mother_ had._

_In return, his loyalty to her was nigh-on unshakable. He obeyed not because he truly had any sort of vested interest in becoming a god–though since Mother thought it proper, he had done his best to fake it for her benefit, so often that he caught himself at times almost believing it–but because she had been his only friend when he needed her so desperately, when he was all alone, without anyone, cold in his isolation, just another sideshow freak to gawk at and deride. He ignored the nagging feeling that something was rotten in the state of Denmark; surely I must be imagining things, he told himself. This is what I wanted…what I've _always _wished for. I am just being selfish, petty. And Mother did nothing to disavow him of that notion, that his vague dissatisfaction was anything but childish naïveté. _

_Yes, he had followed her directives to the letter in a desperate attempt to please her, so that she wouldn't see him for what he was, see him as an unworthy, spoiled, _monstrous _child, and like so many others, leave him, abandoning him to his own personal Hell of isolation. For now, he knew, she cared; she was reasonable; she _listened _and _understood _as virtually no one else had. _

_But as he stood upon that ledge, hidden from the puppet's view, ready to strike down the Cetra girl Mother hated and feared so much, his misgivings were suddenly overpowering. He had viewed her before, yes, but that was through the puppet's eyes, and all he saw was filtered through his perception, so Sephiroth had taken her existence with a grain of salt, but now that he was so close to her, he had an inkling of just how blind the puppet truly was._

_The puppet felt drawn to the girl for her kindness and her good-natured spirit, but what he had failed to pick up on was the fact that she almost literally _radiated _innocence, love, acceptance and…pain. Pain and sadness beneath it all; a bittersweet combination. He himself felt drawn to her, and the part of him that felt dissatisfaction nearly cried out in elation, recognizing her as the end of the long isolation Sephiroth had gone through since his first day of life, and he had the strangest feeling that while Mother could avenge and soothe, the Cetra's was the power to _heal_, permanently. It was a small part of him that cried out, but it quickly gained support, and was enough to stay his hand._

_{What are you _thinking_, my son?!} cried Mother within his mind. {She is a threat! Kill her! NOW!}_

_[Why do we need to kill her?]_

_{_Why_?! 'Why,' he asks. It is because she is Cetra! She is a threat!}_

_[But there is no malice in her, no fighting spirit!]_

_{That is because the Cetra are insidious! Tricky, deceitful liars! They betrayed and bound me underground after I helped them! BETRAYAL!}_

_[But Mother, perhaps there is a way…]_

_{NO! KILL HER NOW!} Mother's voice was shrill with displeasure, and the shock of her unwillingness to listen that had never been there before allowed that small part of him a moment of pristine clarity._

_[No.]_

_{… 'No?'}_

_[Mother, she's not like the others. She is no threat,] he insisted._

_{DISOBEDIENT CHILD! YOU WILL DO MY BIDDING!}_

_[Mother, no! Don't…!] Sephiroth pleaded with a sense of dawning horror._

_Then all protest stopped–all cognitive function stopped. _

_Dimly, he felt that he was falling…falling…falling…_

_The jolt as the _kissaki _of Masamune punctured her back was sudden, but with a horrifying quantity of give…_

_And then he was there, on the ground behind her. The fog cleared from his perception, and as he looked at the Cetra girl's impaled form, slumped forward and devoid of the tension of muscle that characterized life and vigor, a feeling of profound, nauseating disgust rose up in him, bringing bile, unbidden, to the back of his throat. Mother's influence was now dormant, leaving him with only one thought:_

_[Crystals… What have I done?!]_

* * *

Sephiroth awoke with a start. His sweat was cold on his forehead and his breath came to him only haltingly. He remembered, oh did he remember, for in that instant, he had glimpsed into the mind of the twisted, evil _thing _he had so honestly and affectionately called _'Mother,' _and the revelation precipitated by that occurrence, juxtaposed with what sweet, empty promises Jenova had whispered in his ear, had allowed him to reach that dreadful, devastating epiphany, the one that had caused him to retreat within himself, keeping only the most superficial of contact with the reality around him and blindly following Jenova's plans, all the while plotting her downfall from within his most intrinsic self, where she had no power to see.

He stood from his position, seated before Aeris's door, one leg arched, the other outstretched, his arm resting on the bent knee, his beloved Masamune propped up against the wall and resting on his shoulder, and, with a quick second spent with his head cocked to see if he could sense anything going on within her chambers that should not have been, he walked over to the bathroom in the hallway, turned on the tap, and splashed cold water on his face. He picked up a pristine white towel and dried himself off, thankful that he had at least remembered to shed his equipment down to his waist before sitting guard, as the water would have ruined the leather. Chuckling to himself at the thought that he could be concerned over such a thing, his mind involuntarily went over the happenings of the past week.

Currently, he, Aeris, Genesis, Zack, Angeal, Kain, Wallace and Kisaragi (he looked at his hand to confirm that the scar of the stab wound she had inflicted upon it at the treaty signing at the end of the Wutain War lingered still) were lodged above the bar Lockhart owned and operated–_the Seventh Heaven,_ he recalled–while Cloud remained in observation, the doctors baffled by the healing patterns of the wounds he had suffered. It had been an arrangement the martial artist had obviously not been very happy about, and as such, he had tried to excuse himself so as not to cause trouble, but when Aeris had put her foot down (proverbially _and _literally, funnily enough), the other two had accepted: Lockhart begrudgingly; Sephiroth uneasily. And so he made it his mission to avoid those among AVALANCHE who had held a pre-existing vendetta against him before they had all met up on the cargo ship bound for Costa del Sol, with the knowledge that he wished for Aeris to be able to enjoy her time with her friends, and even more so did he find to be abhorrent the idea that his presence might be the handicap upon her happiness.

_And I suppose the fact that you do not know how to conduct yourself around Mother and Father has nothing to do with it?_ His reflection in the mirror was skeptical about the veracity of the motives he stated to be the primary impetus of his current course of action.

_I do not see why the two need be mutually exclusive,_ he replied honestly.

_Hmph, _was his reflection's dismissive (but secretly pensive) response.

Sephiroth smiled to himself–a small, close-lipped smile, but a genuine one. He tossed the towel into the nearby hamper and walked out of the bathroom, resuming his position just outside Aeris's door, leaning Masamune against his shoulder and watching for intruders of any sort. After a while, he managed to achieve a semi-aware trance-like meditative state, which he had adopted for use in lieu of sleep while in hostile environments. It was not long after, however, that this state was disrupted, when Lockhart approached and slid down the wall to sit beside him, her head bowed and using her hair as a veil as she tried to sort through her thoughts and put words to what she wanted to say.

"Take your time," he encouraged her through closed eyes.

She started. "You're awake?"

He scoffed softly. "Of course. I wouldn't be much of a guard if I fell asleep on the job." He opened his right eye, turned his head ever-so-slightly and regarded her, and when she noticed this, she ducked her head with a gasp, unfortunately for her not quickly enough for him to remain ignorant of her suddenly flushed state. With a low grunt of acknowledgement, he closed his right eye and faced his head forward, curling the hand of the arm that rested against his arched leg into a loose fist.

After a long period of silence, no doubt punctuated by a series of false starts on the martial artist's part, she let out a long, clearly audible sigh, and after a moment in which he could feel her gaze scrutinizing him thoroughly (in a way that was quite uncomfortable, truth be told, though due to the level of invasiveness he had become used to over the course of his life, he barely noticed it), she chuckled ruefully. "You _really _love her, don't you?"

His eyes snapped open, gazing at the opposite wall intently for several seconds before closing them again and nodding. "She is my reason for being. It was her death at my hands that forced me to confront the truth of my existence in the service of Jenova."

She masked her surprise at the way in which he referred to the alien super-virus quickly enough that, unlike her embarrassed blush, this did manage to escape the silver-haired man's notice, thankfully enough. "And that is?" she prompted.

"That Jenova, just like everyone else in my life theretofore, had lied to me, deceived me, played me for a fool–pick whichever one you prefer–from the very beginning," he replied. "In Nibelheim, when I discovered the truth of how I came to be, it did not occur in a vacuum; by that time, the two people who were my closest friends had either died, as was the case with Angeal, or gone rogue like Genesis. They had abandoned me, and when I found out what I was, combined with what I had seen of the results of similar experiments on Hojo's part and the fact that Genesis forced me to confront such a horrifying revelation in a way that…was not exactly beneficial for my continued relative mental stability, I had reached what was perhaps my lowest low on an emotional level. It was in that moment, in the nadir of my torment, that Jenova spoke to me." He paused to take a deep breath before continuing. "She told me _exactly _what I needed to hear at that moment in my life, honeyed words and sweet lies of unconditional acceptance and irrevocable belonging. Can you imagine? When I was forced to confront the fact that I wasn't human, she told me that there indeed _was _a place where I belonged, and that was with her. Thereafter, terrified of losing that–of her somehow 'coming to her senses'–my loyalty to her was without reservation, willing and eager to the point of fanaticism." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye to see how she was reacting, and inwardly, part of her was pleased that she could formulate a neutral expression so impermeable as to be able to keep her true feelings hidden even from the great Sephiroth. "Understand, throughout the course of my life, the closest thing to a father I had ever had was the man who instructed me in the proper use of a sword–_this_ sword." He nodded to the _ōdachi _propped up against the wall and leaning on his shoulder. "His name was Masamune, and he was my mentor. And Hojo had him killed, partly because he had outlived his usefulness in that sociopathic bastard's eyes, partly to see how I would react, but mostly, I now know, out of spite. Hojo _did _so love to make me suffer…" He turned his head to face forwards once again, apparently finding what he had sought in her face. "But I had never had anything close to a maternal figure, so when Jenova came calling, I was the perfect victim of her lies."

Lockhart nodded, clearly trying to process what she was being told, and though he could clearly sense that she was having a hard time of it, she was at least keeping an open mind in spite of the difficulty she was experiencing. "Go on," she said.

"When I set Nibelheim to the torch, then, I was in anything _but _my right mind," he continued. "I was in thrall to Jenova's siren song, and I did not even try to fight back. Why should I, was the question I asked myself back then. Jenova was, I thought, the only one on this planet who would accept me for what I had been created for me, the only one who would not betray or abandon me. Perhaps it was a miscalculation on Hojo's part, or maybe it was his intention, just another part of his grand plan of revenge against my mother for her…_impropriety _in the process of my conception, to take my whole life and turn it into the perfect storm from which a monster might be birthed, but I had gone through my life without a single anchoring connection to another human being, no one I cared enough about left alive for the thought of causing their death to give me pause. And when a man, even one who is only half-human, is left without any sort of reason to be attached to this world and every reason to hate it, then with the introduction of a suitable catalyst, hate it he will. I was in an even worse position, though: since I had gone through my life with the understanding that my mother was a woman named Jenova (courtesy, once again, of Hojo), and I knew at that point that 'Jenova,' in fact, was somehow embodied within the creature imprisoned in the Mako reactor at Mount Nibel, as well as the fact that within a Jenova-infected host, there exists a powerful 'Reunion Instinct,' there was not a single thing to stop me from seeing her as a maternal figure, and thus my potential loyalty increased tenfold; all these things, Hojo knew, and some of them he had brought about himself as a way to facilitate the process of my degeneration into what can only be called 'monstrosity.' My loyalty to Jenova was that of a son to his mother: twisted, true, but no less potent for it. Not to mention the fact that I had no inkling of what a mother-son relationship truly entailed, from a purely emotional level, could not have hurt matters. And since Jenova, as a virus, was omnicidal, and I had no emotional connections to the human race whatsoever, with the non-applicable exception of Zack, of course, when she commanded me to kill for whatever reason, my response was never 'why,' but 'how many?' After all, what choice did I have?"

"We _always _have a choice," Lockhart muttered.

"Technically, yes. But in every practical sense of the word, no," responded Sephiroth. "The choice put before me was somewhat of a Catch-22, and so I chose the option that allowed me to stay close to the one who claimed to be my mother. And tell me, to what lengths wouldn't you go for your own mother, were she to return from the dead?"

The truth was, she so badly wanted to punch him for that last remark, but that would mean that he had won; and honestly, even _she _had to admit (however grudgingly) that he had a good point there.

"As I carried out her will again and again, and I saw more and more of the sordid underbelly of human society, some of it coming in dimensions of which I had not even been aware during my days in SOLDIER, I felt more and more certain that I was doing what was right by acting in Jenova's name," he mused. "In truth, perhaps it was this that helped make what happened later so horrifically jarring. Nevertheless, the first time I gazed upon Aeris, it was the beginning of the end." He paused. "Part of what makes me such a skilled swordsman is my…_talent, _I suppose you could say, my _affinity _for reading auras. So many great warriors fell to me because even though their postures did not telegraph their attacks, their _ki _shouted it out loud and clear. And so, the first time I saw her through the eyes of the clone I had dispatched to free you all and kill President Shinra, I could _sense _her aura, and I knew at once that she was Cetra, and I was not. It was not until some time later that I brought the subject up with Jenova, who confirmed that to be true, but regardless, all that managed to do was pique my interest and reinforce my trust in that ability of mine. In the Forgotten Capital, where I was supposed to slay her before she could summon Holy, though, it was different. This time, I was there in the flesh, and the air of innocence and purity about her, coupled with…with pain, loss, and an intimate knowledge of the depths of human suffering, was almost overpowering. And so I refused. I refused, for the first time, to do the bidding of that _abomination,_ with the naïve hope that she would listen to reason, and trust that I, who she called her son, would know what I was doing. As you can probably guess, it didn't quite turn out that way…"

"What happened?"

Sephiroth looked up to the ceiling. "She assumed direct control."

Lockhart had no response.

"After I regained my awareness, my first thought was, 'Oh God, what have I done?' From that point on, I retreated into myself, acting on autopilot, only emerging during those long hours I spent meditating over the Black Materia in order to master it before I summoned Meteor. During those hours, being perhaps the first _true_ rest I had taken since your hunt for me began, I realized how much of a fool I had been, and that if I wanted to atone for Aeris's murder, I had to make sure that her death was not in vain. Thus, I plotted in the deepest recesses of my mind to destroy Jenova, once and for all," he continued. "To that end, I mastered the Black Materia and went ahead with the summoning, then fell into my…'chrysalis state,' I guess you could call it, in which I went about installing the biological equivalent of a 'back door' in the group mind of the Jenova virus, which, since it was located within my brain, was not so difficult a task. And so, when you all arrived in the Northern Cave for that final battle, I engaged you so that I could stall, both to give Aeris time enough to augment the summoning of Holy, and to assert my control over Jenova, in order to give you a fighting chance. When I sensed that she had succeeded, I completed the transfer of control, thus forcing the 'Bizarro' form that was controlled by Jenova to morph into the 'Safer' form that signified my control, instead of allowing it to endlessly regenerate, and in that form, I was able to suppress her survival instinct, betraying her. All the while, I prayed to Aeris to let it end–for me and for Jenova both. And thus, Cloud and I were absorbed into the Lifestream, so that he could provide the catalyst for the end that I desired. For that, I will always be thankful to him. With the death of my body, to which the Jenova virus's…_nucleus, _in a way…was bound, so too was her intelligence sundered, and the nightmare of the Calamity from the Skies was over at long, long last."

Silence was Tifa Lockhart's only response, even as she sat there for many long minutes, attempting to figure out how she could reply to that story, the events of a decade in the past and five years ago from the point of view of he who was blamed solely for their occurrence. Finally, admitting to herself the fact that she had no words to do so, she stood and walked back to her room, leaving Sephiroth there in his vigilant solitude once more.

Neither of them, however, noticed the door to Aeris's room, cracked open almost imperceptibly, softly close.

* * *

"The patient will see you now," the nurse told Sephiroth, her brusque demeanor clearly kept up in an attempt to hide the fear she so clearly radiated at the sight of the former Silver General of SOLDIER. At once grimly amused and marginally somber, he slipped the ice materia with which he was toying surreptitiously into its slot in the wristlet he had tucked inside his coat.

"Thank you," he replied, doing his best to set her at ease. He stood from the waiting-room chair and gestured for the nurse to guide him to Cloud Strife's room, then followed her from a comfortable distance as she led the way. Once there, the door opened and Tifa Lockhart walked out. She nodded a curt greeting, which he returned; their discussion several nights previous had resulted in an uneasy understanding forming between the pair, and he was only too happy to accept something other than outright belligerence to the woman from whom he'd taken almost all she had had left. She brushed past him without a word, and the nurse, unsure of how to interpret this, simply gestured that they had arrived, and then left hurriedly. Choosing to ignore that, he stepped into the hospital room.

"Good to see you, Cloud," he greeted, his expression neutral.

"Sephiroth," grunted the blond. "What do you want?"

"To talk," replied Sephiroth, refusing to rise to the bait. He moved to sit in the chair at the end of Strife's bed, facing him. "You've certainly seen better days."

"Yeah, well, we can't all have regenerative factors up the wazoo," Cloud returned dejectedly.

"It's not your regenerative factor that's the problem. Hojo was a monster, but he did take pride in his work; you were his little pet experiment, according to the lab records we were able to dig up, and thus the lab rat for every one of his psychotic new ideas on how to improve the output of Mako treatments. He used you as a model to create more efficient SOLDIERs, and his most successful experiment regarded upping the healing factor of Mako recipients," stated the Silver General, well aware of how much like a foreign language all this technobabble seemed to the younger man. "You were just outclassed. That, and he wanted your fighting days to be over for good. And quite frankly, I think he did you a favor in that regard."

"What about you, then?"

"I was the opponent he sought. And in fact, it was about what Olliver helped me to discover that I wished to speak," he replied. "I trust Miss Lockhart has told you my story?" Cloud was silent for a moment, and then nodded. "When we last fought, in that cyclical world called 'Dissidia'–of which you might well have no conscious memory, through no fault of your own–I accused you of being stuck in the past, unable to move forward–a puppet needing to be told what to fight for. Do you remember?"

"…Vaguely," responded Cloud hesitantly. "You said…you said you'd give me a reason, every time I needed one, right?"

"Mm-hmm. Do you know what I meant by that?" Cloud shook his head, no. "I meant that I, too, was trapped by the past, right there with you. And unlike you, I accepted that and tried to force myself to be happy about it. But I learned something, something I think you need to learn, too. And if you don't get it at first, well…you'll have many years without combat to give it some extensive thought." He sighed. "You were haunted by your past, and I believed that I was not. I will not deny that as much as you said you pitied me three years ago, the pity I thought that I felt for you was probably multiplied tenfold. But I did nothing to stop it, and for the longest time, I never questioned why. My duel with Olliver, though, made me realize that the reason why was that I believed that if I continued to be your reason to fight, your reason to keep moving forward, then I was atoning for what I had done–to you, to Miss Lockhart, to _everyone. _So, too, did you hang on to your own grief, because you felt that holding onto it and allowing it to torture you, to devour you from the inside, would be a suitable form of atonement for your own failures."

"I…" Though he tried, to this Cloud could formulate no objections.

"More important was the lesson that he taught me after I came to terms with that being the motivation behind my actions. A lesson for me and you both. And it is this: Atonement, Cloud, is never achieved through punishment. It is a selfish sentiment that gives only momentary relief from the weight of the things that you have done and failed to do, all the while hurting those close to you–your friends, your family, your…loved ones…" said Sephiroth. "It's the coward's path, the easy path, and the one that we kept each other on for oh-so-much longer than five years. But no more. We've been given a chance to step off of this path, and for once in my life, I am not going to waste it. I encourage you to do the same."

"What are you talking about?"

"Atonement, Cloud, is not achieved through punishment, but through repentance. The only true path to absolution is to keep moving forward, for the sake of those we have hurt and those who we will hurt if we pursue this grotesque cycle of bloodshed and suffering. We must keep moving forward, learning from the mistakes of the past and living by the lessons they teach, instead of wallowing in angst and self-deprecation because of the fact of their occurrence. And I, for one, intend to take the new life I have been given and work towards this goal of atonement through the improvement of oneself. You, too, Cloud, have been given a second chance, and I hope that for your sake, as a former companion on the path to mutually-assured self-destruction, that you will accompany me on it. Think on what I have said." He stood and made to leave, but paused at the threshold, turning his head to the side. "If not for your sake, do it for Miss Lockhart's," he remarked over his shoulder. "The woman has had enough pain in her life, from the both of us. She loves you, Cloud. I would advise you not to throw that away for the sake of your own hubris. Consign the sword and marry her. There are most definitely worse ways to spend your life."

"Speaking from experience?"

Sephiroth chuckled. "There is a suffix in Wutain that I think is apropos: _de gozaru._" He turned his head forwards. "Farewell, Cloud Strife. I wish you a wonderful life."

With that, he left the blond alone with his thoughts.

* * *

"And just what are you all going to do?" asked Kain amicably, though seriously, clad in his Holy Dragoon armor, coronet and all, his long blond hair flowing in the wind, the Gáe Bolg firmly in his grasp as they stood on top of the Sister Ray in the city of Junon following their attendance of the long-overdue wedding of Vincent Valentine and Lucrecia Crescent, clad in their normal battle-ready combat gear. "With the rest of your new lives, I mean?"

"We've talked about it at some length, and we've decided, I think, to continue to fight," replied Sephiroth, his new fiancée, Aeris, Zack, Angeal, and Genesis at his back and offering no objections to his declaration. "Aeris and I plan to be married soon, officially, and besides, it's what I'm best at. It's what _all _of us are best at. The SOLDIERs, I mean."

"It'll be just like old times," remarked Zack, the massive Buster Sword propped up on his shoulder, a good-natured though sober grin on his face. "I've got much to learn, and with 'Geal back, I can complete my training. Not to mention that _I'm_ not gonna let the fact that the old team's back together go to waste."

"Moreover, Jenova was an alien, and there are bound to be more like her. If they come here to find out what happened, we need to be here to confront them," added Angeal, his two-handed _jian _in its sheath on his back. "In the interim, we can at least limit the reach of ShinRa, prevent atrocities like Wutai from happening to other nations. After all that's happened, we've agreed that the time has come to bring the era of its dominion to a close."

"'Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul. Pride is lost. Wings stripped away, the end is nigh,'" recited Genesis, a small smile of genuine happiness on his face. "So shall it be for the ShinRa Electric Company."

"And who knows? Maybe the end of the age of Mako will allow Gaia to heal, and result in humans finding a new source of energy," said Aeris. "One can only hope."

"Really?" said Olliver, his golden eyes gleaming with glimmers of amusement. "Well then, I suppose you'll be needing these. Aeris. Sephiroth." To her, he threw a white gem the approximate size of a tennis ball, extracted from the pocket of his long black leather coat, and to Sephiroth went the black gem that had formerly been in the head of his staff, Clarent.

"The White Materia?!" exclaimed Aeris in excitement. "It's bigger than I remember…"

"You channeled a lot of power through it when you augmented the summoning of Holy five years ago, and likewise when you cured the Geostigma disease, brought about by Jenova cells undergoing rapid necrosis," explained the vampire, currently in human form thanks to the presence of the late afternoon sun. "Thus, with your mastery of it, the mass of the White Materia was augmented accordingly, and as a consequence, you now have access to its…_other _features. I'll let you find those out on your own." Then he turned to Sephiroth, who stared at his gift with a mixture of recognition and horror. "Have no fear. The Black Materia holds no power over you, Sephiroth. As its master, it will bend to your will. Likewise, I shall leave the exploration of its other abilities to your discretion. It is powerful, yes, but consider it part of your endeavour to be better than you were to use it wisely." Sephiroth's stricken expression faded, and he nodded his grim understanding and acceptance, secreting it away into his coat.

"Don't you need those?" asked Zack, his brow furrowed in confusion. "I mean, you went to all that trouble for that staff of yours, and the Black doesn't work without the White."

In response, Olliver plucked a marble-sized materia from each of the pockets of his black leather trousers, one white, one black. "Don't worry. They reproduced." He slipped them back into his pants' pockets, and his hands emerged with a single, almost luminous violet crystal the size of a throwing knife. "At any rate, it is high time, I think, that Kain and I were going. Farewell, all of you. I wish you good health and good fortune in all your endeavors. _Memento mori._"

With that, he lifted the crystal up to the sky with one hand, uncurling his fingers and flattening his palm, and the crystal hovered on its point in the center of the gloved extremity. It rotated in its levitation, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the almost-luminescence intensifying to a spectacular brilliance and rising into the air with a tinkling sound akin to wind chimes, yet so much more beautiful and perfect, and thus somewhat unnerving (especially to Aeris, as she compared its sound to that of the Planet attempting to make contact with her); then, in an instant, the brilliance reached its peak. A blinding flash engulfed them, and the next moment, they were gone.

Once more reunited, the pain and betrayal of the past left there with the aid of the machinations of the Dragon of Saint George, the company of heroes–Sephiroth Crescent, Aeris Gainsborough, Genesis Rhapsodos, Angeal Hewley and Zack Fair–gazed out at the russet sun on the horizon, leaving the mistakes and failures of yesterday behind and looking forward to the coming of the new day…

* * *

_When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end,_

_The goddess descends from the sky;_

_Wings of light and dark spread afar_

_She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting._

_Infinite in mystery is the gift of the Goddess;_

_We seek it thus, and take to the sky._

_Ripples form on the water's surface:_

_The wandering soul knows no rest._

_There is no hate, only joy,_

_For you are beloved by the goddess:_

_Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds._

_Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul;_

_Pride is lost–_

_Wings stripped away, the end is nigh._

_My friend, do you fly away now?_

_To a world that abhors you and I?_

_All that awaits you is a somber morrow_

_No matter where the winds may blow._

_My friend, your desire_

_Is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess._

_Even if the morrow is barren of promises_

_Nothing shall forestall my return._

_My friend, the fates are cruel._

_There are no dreams, no honor remains–_

_The arrow has left the bow of the goddess._

_My soul, corrupted by vengeance_

_Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey_

_In my own salvation_

_And your eternal slumber._

_Legend shall speak_

_Of sacrifice at world's end–_

_The wind sails over the water's surface_

_Quietly, but surely._

_Even if the morrow is barren of promises,_

_Nothing shall forestall my return._

_To become the dew that quenches the land,_

_To spare the sands, the seas, the skies_

_I offer thee this silent sacrifice._

**_Exeunt._**


End file.
